A Walk above the Clouds

[dawn_felagund]

Earlier this week, we took a walk down my road, in the valley along the Barton River. These pictures, which we taken the day after the walk down my road, couldn't be more different. Instead of the valley, this walk was along the ridgeline of Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest mountain. Instead of soft meadows, a gently coursing river, and a palette

Comments

[sinneahtes]

Ooh, those are gorgeous pics that are telling me I need to get out for more weekends. I'm kind of thinking from the comfort of my home on a clear day that I'd love to have that experience of walking above the clouds, but I don't know. I have to admit that fog in my own neighborhood can create some really weird mixed feelings and stir up an insecure mood despite me loving the sight of it, so I can only imagine what it would be like on a strange new mountain with a different ecosystem.

For some reason, I'm constantly surprised by what you can see (or what signs say you can see) in the distance from the top of a mountain. Kind of makes the world feel both bigger and smaller at the same time!

we still saw people crossing boundaries, allowing their dogs off-lead

*blood pressure rises* At a local game refuge I used to love hiking at, I would often see people with their dogs off leash right in front of a sign forbidding it. My "favorite" moment was when some women were coming out of the refuge as I was heading in and informed me a bear had been stalking and charging them, and I saw at least one of their dogs was off leash. Eep. (Though to my embarrassment, a family member of mine is guilty of letting our dogs off leash there and elsewhere and wouldn't listen to "everyone thinks their dog is special, but the rules are for everyone" or "disaster only takes a single moment of panic or misbehavior" *sigh*)

[dawn_felagund]

Walking above the clouds is interesting but also gets a little boring pretty fast! :) We made this particular hike in hopes of getting nice views on peak leaf weekend. Ha! That didn't happen. When we go back, I'd like it to be on a clear day. It will not be as atmospheric, but the views will be worth it, I think.

Kind of makes the world feel both bigger and smaller at the same time!

You're so right! From the top of Bald Mountain and Jay Peak, we can see Mount Washington, for instance, as well as Mount Mansfield. It's an unusual feeling that something that would take an hour or two in the car is suddenly *right there*, or seemingly so.

Off-lead dogs ... *sigh*

This is a particular pet peeve of mine. There are trails in Vermont where it is allowable (we even have Dog Mountain!) and I'm 100% perfectly fine with people and their dogs taking advantage of that freedom.

But when there are leash laws, I appreciate if people follow them. Lancelot is aggressive with other dogs, so he is always on-lead and with a head collar handy so that he's easy to control, and we only walk him in places where there is a leash law so that any dogs we meet are also on-lead, at least in theory. But what often happens is that people will not follow the leash law, and their dog (which they can very rarely control appropriately to be off-lead in the first place) will bound over to him to play, and he'll attack the other dog. This happened constantly in Maryland at the nature center. He hurt another (off-lead) dog one time, and the owner was giving Bobby dirty looks, but we always have our dog in control. There would have been no problem if the other dog was wearing a leash in accordance with nature center rules.

There are trails that would be great for him but where we won't take him because so many people have their dogs off-lead against the rules. (Mount Hor is one of them.)

I understand being embarrassed by the bad choices of family members (oh do I, who has at least one Trump supporter in the immediate family), but I don't think you need to be! :)