Slicing through Middlebury's backyard, Vermont's Catamount Trail is one of the state's most treasured secrets.On the eve of its 20th birthday, the Catamount is ready to be a secret no more.
By Sarah J. M. Tuff '95
Photographs by Jordan Silverman
It is so calm here, at the border of Vermont and Quebec. No birds, the only sound a distant thrum of snowmobiles. Even the shadows have fled, with evening creeping in and the last of the light skittering across the slick, crusty trail. A banner has been strung across the chain-link fence; two bottles of champagne are crossed ceremoniously in the snow.
And then they appear, cresting a knoll: a horizontal line of 12 cross-country skiers—all wearing turquoise T-shirts over their parkas—on the brink of a remarkable accomplishment: skiing the entire length of Vermont in one month, without missing a day. These "end-to-enders," as they've come to be known, begin to clang their poles, holler, and take their last strides before falling down into heaps, just yards from Canada as the champagne sprays.
Even more extraordinary than the feat is the route they've traveled: a 300-mile corridor that is North America's longest cross-country ski trail and Vermont's best-kept secret. From Sherman Reservoir to North Troy, the Catamount Trail climbs mountains, crosses streams, drops down hair-raising chutes, and winds through farms tucked under a duvet of white snow. An idea born two decades ago, the trail tells a Vermont story, about sugar maples and birches, but also about ingenuity, land use, and volunteerism. In recent years, the trail has seen an uptick in skiers, and now, thanks to a cohort of Middlebury students, the Catamount Trail is coming of age with a state-of-the-art mapping system that will help ensure a long life for Vermont's other "long trail." The Catamount turns 20 this year, and it's ready to celebrate.
Cross-country skiing is one of the world's oldest sports. Some 5,000 years ago, Scandinavians embarked on journeys with strips of timber tied to their feet; today, vast networks of trails still spider through Norway, Finland, and Sweden. "This kind of thing is very common throughout Europe," says Middlebury environmental studies scholar-in-residence Bill McKibben, who skied most of a Catamount end-to-end tour (taking a short break to get married), in 1988. "But in this country, the Catamount is unique."
Conceived as a thesis project by a University of Vermont geography major in 1984, the Catamount Trail cuts through some of the most storied and scenic areas of Vermont: the rolling hills of Landgrove and Londonderry, near Stratton Mountain; the evergreen forests and glistening fields of the Mad River Valley; the broad meadows overlooking Huntington Valley off Camel's Hump Road. The views improve as you travel north. Near Middlebury, the trail dances up to Blueberry Hill and careens through the Moosamaloo National Forest to the College's Bread Loaf campus and the Rikert Ski Touring Center. One of the toughest sections, a favorite among generations of skiers, is from Bolton Valley to Trapp Family Lodge: staggering up a steep 1,000 feet, before dropping 2,000 feet on switchbacks alongside stream gorges and old sugar shacks.
Overseeing all this splendor is the Catamount Trail Association (CTA), which was incorporated shortly after the inaugural end-to-end tour in 1984. The nonprofit organization protects and promotes the network, which is winter-use only and open to cross-country skiers and snowshoers. Traveling along the trail is free, but skiers must pay trail fees when they hit one of the 11 touring centers the Catamount crosses. Today, there are about 1,600 members of the CTA, nearly half of whom live out of state.
Because it crosses the property of more than 200 landowners, the Catamount Trail is as much about people—specifically creating trust and common understanding among them—as it is about the land. While the Appalachian and Long Trails are largely on public lands, 60 percent of the Catamount is on private property. "The Catamount . . . is really striking a [positive] blow for more careful development of our woodlands," says McKibben. "In 1988, one of the things that people were talking about was the influx of city people into Vermont and the fact that they were bringing with them the kind of posted: no trespassing attitude toward the world. And I think [the CTA] played a very important role in at least slowing that down, that trend."
But as land is subdivided into smaller plots, keeping track of constituents—and convincing them to allow strangers in their backyard—becomes increasingly difficult. Though most say yes, sometimes owners say no, or a road is rebuilt or a bridge washed out, and the trail has to be rerouted. "The Catamount Trail is like a snake, wiggling," says Lenore Budd, the CTA's trail manager. Until recently, the CTA had attempted to delineate the trail's location using topographical maps—"We'd been trying to get into the world of GIS (geographic information systems) but didn't have the budget," Budd explains—and while the mapping worked to a degree, it was hardly an exact science. Then, about two years ago, Budd struck up a conversation with a former colleague, Middlebury GIS specialist Bill Hegman, and they came up with a solution. Why not have a few Middlebury geography students test their skills by mapping the Catamount Trail with handheld global positioning system units? Hegman knew of two seniors—Eliza Johnston '02 and Alexia Katsaounis '02—who were looking for an independent project, and soon nine students had enrolled in the 2002 J-term course to work on the project. The first week, the class worked on logistics: transportation, data collection consistency, equipment coordination. Then it was time to ski. They hit the trail, picking up data points that provided an overall accuracy of two to five meters, for the area from Blueberry Hill north.
One group stayed at the cabin of a CTA board member and skied south from the Canadian border; others tackled segments around Middlebury. Hegman often joined Johnston and Katsaounis, who happened to be beginner skiers. On one occasion, the trio tackled a brand-new section near Lincoln Gap, which was particularly overgrown. "It was quite an adventure, actually!" laughs Hegman. "It took us over an hour to go 300 yards. At one point there was a tree, and of course [the students] climb over the tree. I then climb over the tree, fall down and slide underneath so I'm back on the downhill side of the tree again. It took us three separate attempts to get that part mapped." Despite a few misadventures, Hegman's students had successfully collected data for the northern half of the trail by the end of the month; one of the nine, Hanna Taylor '02, worked through the spring, compiling and editing maps after the snow had melted.
Last J-term, Rita Vincello '03 and Yuka Higashino '03 picked up the project, taking on the southern half of the Catamount, from Blueberry Hill to the Massachusetts border. The duo logged about 40 miles by the end of the month, but "Rita really wanted to stay on and finish," says Hegman, who agreed to the request. "She skied like you wouldn't believe! She skied the rest of the trail."
With her boyfriend (now fiancé) Reese Forsythe providing shuttle service, Vincello skied alone three or four days a week. One day, when she was out on a section near Somerset Reservoir, a blizzard blew in, temperatures dropped, and by nightfall, there was no sign of Vincello. Forsythe called Hegman, who began to organize a search party with Ted Milks, executive director of the CTA. At 10 p.m., Vincello finally emerged from the woods—and counts that part of the Catamount among her favorites. "I bonded most with the trail [in the areas] where I wasn't sure I was going to make it out!" says Vincello, who soon began carrying a radio. "When I'd get back to the GIS lab, it was usually pretty late. But I'd download the data right away, and all of a sudden there was a squiggly line! It was so rewarding to see the results right away."
Soon after she finished the trail, Vincello's data was sent to the South Burlington-based company Northern Cartographic, which produced new maps of the Catamount that are far more precise than their predecessors and have been included in the eighth edition of the CTA's guidebook. The project had finally given the CTA an exact length of the trail: 301.1 miles. "Middlebury gave us a huge contribution," says Budd. "They've essentially created the line that we can superimpose on so many other types of information. It is the key ingredient to the guidebook, and much more." While Vincello's notes ("impeccable," according to Hegman) can help Budd decide which areas need work, the new data will also help conservation as the CTA makes plans for easements to permanently protect the trail. The information can also be shared with state agencies to determine logging routes, and with thousands of cross-country enthusiasts, for whom a new season awaits.
CTA supporters hope that the high-tech data and maps will not only help current trail users, but attract new ones. "The trail is a pretty neat resource for skiing and snowshoeing," says Milks, "and we're trying to get the word out to the younger generation that it's there, it's fun, it's a great way to be in the woods." Last year, there were 10,000 skier days—an impressive figure, but not exactly the 4.5 million that Vermont's alpine resorts enjoy each winter, and the trail's future depends on awareness and support. So, in part to generate publicity, Milks decided to organize an end-to-end tour for February 2003, the first since 1990.
While about 150 people "through-hike" the Long Trail (which coincides with the Catamount at a few points) each season, only a handful have ever skied the Catamount from tail to tip—frosty winter conditions and the sheer effort of scrambling over rocks and under trees on skis make it an extremely challenging endeavor. Nonetheless, spots on the CTA van that shuttled skiers to the trailheads each day quickly filled up, while dozens of families with homes along the trail offered to host the end-to-enders. When February arrived, winter was in brute force, slamming Vermont with temperatures of –32 degrees F; the mercury didn't budge for days. But every single day, the group got up, gathered and skied. On their way to Canada, they sang songs, determined the average age of the group (54), and stopped for hot chocolate. Joined by nearly 200 well-wishers who came to ski part of the trail with them (including this writer), the end-to-enders listened to the sound of their skis swooshing through the snow, and to the stories that each had brought to the backcountry. By the end of February, they had completed their journey; more important, perhaps, they had helped further the legacy of the country's longest cross-country ski trail.
There's a noticeable buzz about the trail this year, thanks to copious amounts of snow that piled up on the Catamount last season. But excitement has also been generated by the end-to-enders and by the shiny new guidebooks arriving in bookstores. Both those who skied the length of the state and those who measured it became ambassadors of the trail by telling stories—with innkeepers, shop owners, and, yes, sometimes computers. Whether they were watching their gear dry by the fire in the home of a Landgrove couple or crackling with post-ski electricity in Ross Commons, the skiers and the students have helped extend the life of this Vermont treasure.
Of course, much of the work on the Catamount occurs in the off-season, when CTA trail chiefs recruit volunteers to help clear brush, build bridges, and nail signature paw-print blazes to trees. Indeed, dozens of workers can be found in the woods on most fall weekends, rushing to prepare before the first big snowfall.
On a brisk bluebird morning in early November, the Middlebury nordic team offered to clear a section just south of the Rikert Touring Center. After an hour's hike into the wilderness, they began lopping branches, snipping roots, and clearing blackberry bushes and goldenrod. Two students decided to cut down a dead tree, sparking a debate as to which way it would fall. "Should we start a pool?" someone chirped before the tree toppled with a thundering crack. Within minutes it was carted off the trail.
That sparkling Sunday morning was a gift to those involved; an exuberance existed, one that can only come from time in the woods—and time on the Catamount. "[The trail] is such a great resource, and it's underutilized," says Simon Isaacs '04. "A lot of kids at Middlebury are environmentally conscientious, but most students don't know about the Catamount Trail."
Milks hopes that will change. And why shouldn't it? Through the hard work of many, the Catamount beckons. Think about the simplicity of it all, the featherweight gear, the freedom, the taste of buttered bread halfway through a 15-mile ski. The way you feel after a day in the backcountry, when you've fallen a dozen times, but are secure in the knowledge that countless others have, too.
The world's oldest winter sport also turns out to be the most democratic, and would seem to be an appealing choice for someone who is new to snow. But the Catamount has a way of casting a spell even among those who know these woods intimately. "People who come from the north realize that the great pleasure of winter is going out and making your own heat," says McKibben, who advises the Middlebury nordic team. "If you really want to see Vermont in the winter, the way to do it is on a pair of cross-country skis."
Sarah Tuff '95 writes from Burlington, Vt. Her stories have appeared in National Geographic Adventure, Time, Sports Illustrated and Men's Journal.