51. The Green Mountains

Another mountain range that I am particularly fond of is back east in the state that bears their name: the Green Mountains of Vermont. In terms of size they aren’t very high, but after having been there a few times I realized that mountain height comes more from sea level perspective. So while the highest mountain in Vermont might only be the elevation of the eastern Idaho Snake River Plain, when you’re seeing Mt. Mansfield from the shores of Lake Champlain it can look every bit as high as some of the peaks of the Rockies. But having said that, the Green Mountains don’t have that rugged look. They are more comparable to the Hoodoo Mountains out my back door except even less angular than that. Something about the difference between an evergreen forest and a deciduous forest seems to change the shape of everything. So the Green Mountains have a softer look than anything out west. I won’t lie and tell you that it made me like them more. I had to spend some time in them to realize I needed to just enjoy them as they were not waste time making comparisons. And that is how I came to love them in their own right. Do you know that more rainfall comes to the Green Mountains in summer than in winter? And I spent summers there in that humidity that wasn’t usually all that bad since it doesn’t tend to get too hot.

            The summer rains can be heavy and come in wild storms that cause the rivers to swell. Out west we expect that mainly in the spring from the snow melt that in some places never completely stops until the snow falls again. In the Green Mountain summers you aren’t going to see snow capped peaks and when you climb those peaks you are going to have to climb a tree if you want to see the views. There is a totally different dimension to mountain climbing in heavily wooded deciduous mountains that I leaned to enjoy. There is something soothing and comforting in the Green Mountains, that while not the Wild West, I have come to love.