VT Mountaineering
A couple of buddies and I drove down to Vermont this passed weekend for some late season camping, hiking, trekking and good ole’ brew drinking. While campfire burgers and sleeping in below freezing temperature were wickedly gratifying, the real highlight was hiking up the 4,395 feet peak that was Mt. Mansfield. Recorded as the highest summit of the Green Mountains of New England, it was definitely not as swift of a trail as we might have expected. With each step our legs grew weaker and the hill got more steep. By the time we’d nearly reach the top, it became much more of a mental challenge rather than physical; not only was it colder but it was much more dangerous. It took a short pep talk to rally the troop up the rest of the cliff, but we prevailed and boy was the view and sense of achievement worth every muscle contraction. It is at that very moment that I truely grasped the definition of sublimity, seeing the ice and snow covered neighboring summits and the endless horizon forming the spherical crust of the earth really surpassed the conception of what beauty means.
