It's been a little bit since I've written one of these. Is that because I haven't been active on HIVE? Absolutely not! Quite the contrary actually.

I know I'm late to the party on this one; but remembering the old days of everyone talking about desires for something like the "communities" we now have and actually see the platform manifest a system that allows them to function in such a productive way is incredible. I have been finding more and more communities that I absolutely love and have been posting things I never thought I would post.

In the past couple weeks I've made 4 or 5 cooking posts.. ME!? Cooking posts!? I have always known I'm a decent cook; but I've never really identified as one. I'm one of those people who thinks the food they eat is so strange and different than most that I tend to just keep it to myself or my partner. It's almost an embarrassment kind of thing for me; even though I like my food, I was convinced I've just warped my taste buds into liking whatever slop I put in front of myself.

It's been a blast poking around communities such as Natural Medicine, SkateHive, The WEEKEND, Urban Exploration, Movies & TV Shows, ReggaeJAHM.. the list goes on and on.

And that's without even mentioning the obvious staples such as LeoFinance, OCD, GEMS.. again I can't stop exploring. There's too much fun to be had and the adoption of communities has really made everything even more interesting. I have so much fun reading, voting and commenting that I lose track of the time I wanted to use to make a post!

I was even made a moderator(thank you @ervin-lemark !) of a small, budding community Freestyle Sports which isn't the most active yet, but as HIVE grows, I'm sure it could as well! It's a great place for people of a diverse group of activities to post them all in one supportive community!

OK, sorry, that's enough tags. I got excited. I forget how many places I've been exploring. I've even found myself watching gameplay videos on LBRY; something I have never been interested in before.. but I guess there's a first for anything.

OK, change of topic

If you've been following me, or have read almost any of my posts, you might have picked up that I live in a very rural ski resort town. It's an ever-changing environment. Year round, you have us, the working class that keep the tourist business alive for minimum wage and for the absolute love of the area. The other side of the year round crew is the very wealthy people who don't really work and settle down here and build crazy mountain mansions.. quite a dream. It's pretty economically diverse area and it can be a little frustrating at times but, it's worth it.

The winter we see thousands upon thousands of people come and leave from all over the world; even during COVID. The summer, people come to use the bike trails, golf, go on hikes and take advantage of our never ending system of rivers/strems/brooks/ponds/lakes/whatever.

It's the middle of April now; and usually spring has sprung by this point in time. And it did. My mindset certainly started to switch gears towards more summer-time kind of projects; and up until a few days ago it was in the 50's and 60's; even 70's!(Fahrenheit, obviously). Although the mountain is still open with a few ribbons, I had all but forgotten about snowboarding for the season; other than the occasional jaunt.

But, being this is Vermont, and weather is NEVER anything CLOSE to predictable.. two days ago a rainstorm turned into a snowstorm. Down at my apartment, we got maybe an inch or two of super wet heavy snow(6 on the cars); but as you progressed in elevation, it got a lot deeper. Given that I have been trying to get back in shape after spending my first and only winter as a chairlift mechanic, I decided I would take Raiden for a hike up a closed part of the mountain and ride down.

There's a village road next to one part of the mountain that winds around over potholes and switchbacks to put you up to a good few hundred feet of elevation gain before you arrive at the dead end. Said dead end is connected to a infrequently utilized ski trail aptly named "Village Run" that serves the homes and apartments on the road. It's a boring, mostly flat wide trail that there really is no point to being on unless you are going to somewhere on the road. However, what it does offer is an easy hike to "the plateau"; what we call a point partway up the mountain where three chairlifts kind of intersect.

I thought to myself, "hey, this won't be so bad; I'll park at the top of the village road, hike up village run, and then I'll only have to get up one more (exhaustingly steep) trail and we're at the top!"

I was wrong. It turns out the 2 inches at my apartment quickly became 6 half way up the village road. It had not been plowed. It was incredibly wet, heavy, sticky, weird snow-slush.. so once the single tracks I was following ended, I couldn't keep enough momentum in my little Saab to get the rest of the way up the hill. There was no where to park without endangering both my car and other people who may drive; so I had to give up and go back to the bottom.

This kind of doubled our trip. In the summer, this is no mellow hike. In six inches of heavy wet snow that sticks to everything? Not so bad, but still no piece of cake.

"Six inches". Fuck was I wrong. With every 100 meters we hiked, we gained at least an additional inch of snow. Getting to the plateau was pretty difficult, and I'd say we were up to about 9 inches by that point. I also had really expected that this was not an original idea, and that there might be some tracks to follow. But, nope!, and we were breaking trail the whole way.

The ski patrol shack I so optimistically had my eyes on

We got to the plateau and I wasted a good amount of energy trekking around to the various lift shacks. My first thought was the Ski Patrol shack. I had used this shack during night time snowmaking plenty and to my knowledge it was always unlocked. But, upon getting to the door, I realized that they probably only left it unlocked during snowmaking season. Combo lock on the door, and I tried guessing the combination(I've worked for the mountain for 3 years so it's not as crazy as it sounds), yet I failed. Next, a trip to the lift shack at the bottom of the lift we were about to hike up. Unlocked! We were soaked so I wanted the opportunity to dry some shit off but... no propane.

Hike ALLLLLL the way back across the plateau to the next shack. Being a lift mechanic for the mountain, we have keys to the masterlocks on the shacks. Now, I did leave my job, for reasons you can read about in my previous post.. but I still have my keys! BUT, god damnit, this shack had a busted lock so they had decided to put a brand new lock on it. It was a different key; and I didn't have it as it was a recent development and I had been working on the other peak for the winter.

Fourth try's a charm? Yup! Finally. I think just walking between these 4 buildings was an additional mile or so through this wet ass snow. At least it was flat! We got into the last lift shack and the electric heater worked fine inside; although it did take me a minute to find the power switch. It had been hiding under the cover that wasn't obviously removable until I tried.

time to try to dry this shit

Raiden has apparently gotten just as out of shape as I have. I never thought this to be possible. This dog is an impenetrable ball of energy. I've taken him on 12+ mile hikes up the tallest peaks around and he gets home and wants to go skate or play.

BUT, he doesn't know when to stop. He was having serious trouble making it up here in the snow. He was clearly very thirsty. I kept trying to get him to rest a little and drink some water before we headed up the really intense part; but he wouldn't. No matter what. He's a smart little bastard and he has been protesting drinking water on hikes ever since I bought him his backpack with his collapsable dish. I think he's going on a thirst strike to protest the backpack; like "hey I don't need this fucking thing!"

Raiden trying to help ski patrol take down their ropes now that the season is over

After I dried off and dried off his stuff, I left a few of the heavier items in said shack, made sure to bring my shack keys, locked it up and we headed out.

Almost immediately, it was kind of a "holy shit what are we doing" kind of moment. Firstly, as I mentioned before, I had really thought there might be some snowshoe or skinning tracks to follow. Anything. There were not. The closest thing I could see was the indentations from the side-by-side work road.. but that turned out to be an even more difficult path given the snow was so wet that when you would step it would all slide on top of the rocks beneath.

I don't have snowshoes, or anything of that sort. I've always hiked in my snowboard boots; trying to use an old pair I don't care about whenever possible. People think I'm crazy(or an idiot, what's the difference), but normally it's really no big deal. But in these conditions, I definitely regretted not having anything of that nature.

only tower 3!? god damn

There were only very, very few points during this hike where I was confident we were going to make it to the top. Realization of reality kind of set in on Raiden's face almost immediately, like "oh we're going up farther? Why'd you let me play so much?". He started moving VERY slowly. He even walked behind me for awhile when he got sick of breaking trail.

I wish he was better at breaking trail. I really wanted to follow his path but there was a little too much zig-zagging going on. I would aim for little straight sections to make my hike easier for small distances.

We slowly, very slowly made our way up. Every step the snow got deeper and heavier. It was exhausting, but I had made a commitment to myself to get back in shape so I had to just keep on going. I brought a few different drinks for myself as I had wanted to save as much water for Raiden as possible on the off chance he ever decided he would drink it.

It was certainly much, much more difficult than I had anticipated.. but looking around, I was thinking "wow, this is going to the best run of the season. Multiple seasons". We were up to a foot of snow now. The entire trail was untouched. All the trails this lift serviced were untouched. I had an entire peak to myself. I kept saying "this is going to be worth it.. THIS IS GOING TO BE WORTH IT".

A goofy ass Rottie mix for depth reference

Each step was more difficult. This trail gets steeper the higher you go. In hindsight, I wish I had taken the liftline. I had always hiked the trail I decided to this day, so I figured I knew what I was in for.. but the lift line would have been so much easier. Nevertheless, I kept on going. One foot after another.

I couldn't tell you how many times I turned around and said "well, this is far enough". But I pushed myself to keep going. Step after step. Tree island after tree island. Hydrant after hydrant. Just. Keep. Going.

I was honestly more concerned about Raiden. And I mean that! I'm not just making up an excuse for my own lack of physical competence. But he was struggling. But even when I stopped for a quick break, he would slowly saunter his way up. I don't think he was exactly THRILLED; but we needed it. Both of us.

I've made snow on this trail plenty. However, when I worked as a snowmaker I worked nights. It was always pitch black and we were seeing by the power of very strong lights that clipped onto our helmets. That, coupled with the lack of visibility, made it very difficult to see where I was. I knew there was one last really steep pitch before we hit the last flat before the summit. But I got fooled by other pitches 2 or 3 times. Defeating, to say the least.

There were snowmaking hydrants I could have easily used to mark my progress. The way they are identified is by numbers; 1 being at the top and increasing as you go downhill. So I could have easily walked over to a hydrant to see I was at 27, 17, 12, 7.. whatever. But even that extra 40 feet over to the side of the trail didn't seem worth it. Until, finally, I could see hydrant number 9 from my path. I remembered replacing hydrant 8 very well as I was sent there alone with limited tools in the middle of the night. I knew 8 was at the end of the flats. And then, easy peasy we're a short jaunt from the top.

Of course, the top ski patrol shack also had a combination lock. Those assholes. Believe me, it is intentional. There's a friendly beef at the mountain between pretty much all labor departments and ski patrol. They like to screw other employees over; probably because they really don't do much with their time at work. They ski/snowboard, hang out, drink some beers, put up and take down ropes, and occasionally deal with an injury; although I've heard that most of the time they need to give someone a ride down it's just someone who's too uncomfortable to make it down the hill on their own.

But, luckily, the tiny lift shack had a normal lock. In my opinion, neither of these should be locked. And that's for good reason other than my own personal qualms. Our mountain is on the Long Trail- a several hundred-mile long trail system across multiple states. People hike part or all of it very frequently and can be out there for months at a time. There's a pretty conscious effort to provide periodic shelter for these backpackers. And I believe by policy, these ski patrol shacks are meant to be just that- especially as this part is DIRECTLY on the trail. But, I guess patrol isn't all that concerned with that(I'm saying this with a smile, I got NO real beef).

We dried our stuff off one last time before heading down. Again, Raiden wouldn't relax and would barely drink water. I had to cup it in my hands for him to drink- he was CLEARLY protesting the bowl and backpack. Given how much he struggled getting up here, I decided I would relieve him of his back for the rest of the day and stuffed it down in my own backpack. I tried so hard to get him to relax but he just wanted me to kick snow so he could jump for it and bite it. I didn't entertain that notion for long because I knew what he was in for.

When I snowboard with Raiden, he chases me as fast as he can. I can't let him catch me, because he has a tendency to get too close and get run over. I've clipped his paws so many times with my metal edges I thought he would learn his lesson. But he won't. So, I knew he was going to be sprinting down this whole mountain. At least there was snow to cushion his joints.

Thinking about everything we hiked up, I was ready for one of the best runs of my life. At least until the plateau. Below there, I knew it would probably be too wet and sticky to be able to keep moving. It's not too steep down there. Maybe in the bootpack but still, unlikely.

So how was it?

Fucking horrible. The snow was much heavier/wetter/stickier than I could ever imagine. Despite how steep the trail was I could barely move. Every turn would wash away all the snow and my edge would be on grass. I ended up just going straight down the entire slope.. slowly. I had to even hike down to the plateau once I got towards the bottom.

The other issue was the snow was so wet it was sticking to my base. It was coming off in layers and multiple inches would just attached to my snowboard. As anyone who snowboards knows, once this happens, you aren't moving. When I finally came to a stop I realized that had happened. So I just hiked down.

So that was that. A really long hike with little reward other than the exercise and a beautiful afternoon with my puppo. Which is actually a huge reward. This was extremely therapeutic for me, and the time alone to think was priceless. There are times when I win in the battle against my dumbass manic brain and this hike was one of them; despite the disappointment. Snowboarding is my biggest therapy; but hiking comes close.

Yesterday was my mother's birthday. She passed away when I was in high school in 2010. Therefore, I didn't really have the courage to write this post until today even though this occurred Friday. In a sense, this hike was for her <3

Love you Mom. And love all you HIVErs. Please reach out to me, or anyone, if you are having problems with mental health. I'm here for everybody. Stay strong y'all <3