(Host) When Jules Older decided to ski the tail of the Catamount Trail, he got a little more than he bargained for.
(Older) The other day I got a call reminding me that the end-to-end ski of the Catamount Trail was about to begin, and would I like to join them? Would I like to join them? Hmmm. I thought of the last time I joined them… I’d picked up the phone. “Hi, Jules, this is Rolf from the Catamount Trail Association. We’re skiing Vermont from end to end. On Sunday we’re skiing the last leg, from Jay Peak to the Canadian border. Why don’t you come?”
Why don’t I come? Because I’m afraid, that’s why. Because Chris Braithwaite, editor of the Barton Chronicle, wrote of his Catamount experience, “It was all I could do to get out of bed the next day. I was lucky (if not exactly grateful) to be alive.”
With that in mind, I said, “Look, Rolf, I’d love to come, but–”
“Great. See you Sunday. Bye.”
As the week wore on I considered different ways to break my leg at home rather than wait for the inevitable compound fracture in the wilderness. The phrase “last leg” now had an ominous ring.
I came anyway, along with 10 others. We drove up the side of Jay Peak and started skiing. All morning we skied and de-skied. We de-skied to step over streams, de-skied to trudge along rutted roads and de-skied to disentangle ourselves (all right, myself) from deep drifts.
By noon we’d covered the five miles to the Jay Village Store for a soup and sandwich. It was the best soup I’d ever tasted. It was the best sandwich I’d ever tasted. The Coke was equally outstanding. Then Rolf announced it was time to go. “Next stop, Canada,” he said. “We’ll have about four miles of easy skiing.
We headed into the last American woods at 1:30.p.m. We emerged from the last American woods at 4:30. In between, we got lost, retraced our tracks, got lost again, then hacked our way through the thorniest puckerbrush in the state of Vermont.
Finally, we emerged at the top of a hill overlooking North Troy and aimed our skis straight down toward the Canadian border. By now the snow had firmed up considerably, and our speed of descent was downright impressive. But when my skis got ahead of me on the steepest part, I lost my footing, my nerve and any trace of impressiveness. I hit a puddle with a splash, then hit the frozen ground with a thud. I limped down the rest the hill to where the others were gleefully waiting beneath the “Welcome to Quebec” sign. I tried to look gleeful too, but the pulsing pain radiating from my gluteus maximus kept turning my cheery smile into a wince.
“You ok, Jules?” Rolf asked.
“Uh, sure – ow!. Why do you – ya! – ask? I never – ooh! – felt better.”
The next day it was all I could do to get out of bed. I was lucky (if not exactly grateful) to be alive.
This is Jules Older — and, guess what? I ‘m doing it again this year — in Albany, Vermont, the Soul of the Kingdom.
For more information on the “End-to-end” ski event, visit the Catamount Trail Association online.
Jules Older is the author of more than 20 books for children and adults, and is a passionate outdoors enthusiast.