My path through the Green Mountains of western Vermont yesterday (7/20) took me over the Middlebury Pass, the last of my steep climbs before I cross the border into Ticonderoga, NY. There was a lot to intimidate me about this climb.

On the elevation map, Middlebury Pass appears even steeper than the dreaded Kancamagus Pass I wrote about on 7/12. This morning, Doon, the Green Mountain Bike Shop owner that I wrote about yesterday, said that cross-country riders coming from the west frequently say that there are no climbs as difficult as the ones in this part of the country–the inclines through the big mountain ranges out west, like the Rockies, are long but more gradual. Doon said his wife Anni offered to give me a “boost,” in her car, over the hardest part of the pass. I appreciated the offer but told him that I am now committed to doing this on my own. It was a bit unsettling, however, to get a suggestion that I might need some outside help to pull this off.

I stopped at JD’s Quick Stop Sunoco, one of the last points of civilization before starting the climb up to the pass. There is no cell service in the area. The guy behind the counter said he doesn’t like driving up the pass in his car because it is so steep. Ulp.

The signage west of Hancock, the last small town on the east side of the pass, ominously warned of the challenge ahead, and also of the severe weather recently that has washed out parts of the road and covered it with debris. I had read recent newspaper accounts of a home near Ripton, VT that had become “unmoored.” I knew this was somewhere near my route, but I had no inkling just how close I would come to the scene of that disaster.

Here are a couple signs that gave me pause.

The climb was taxing, and it gradually kept getting worse. When I was about a mile and a half from the high point, I saw a guy trimming the ground cover around a very small old cemetery plot and stopped to chat (and catch my breath). His name, he said, was “June.” His real name is Malcolm, but he was a junior, and so had been known as June all his life. He was hired by the nearest town to keep the area around this small cemetery trimmed, and he generally attends to this about once a week. Hoping for some encouragement, I asked June if I was getting close to the peak, and he responded, “heh heh heh. No, you still got some hill ahead of you.”

I asked June if I could take his picture and he said sure, but asked whether I wanted him to show his missing front tooth. I told him I thought he looked fine either way and it was totally up to him. As you can see, he decided to keep his mouth closed.

As I got closer and closer to the summit, my rest stops became a lot more frequent, and longer in duration, than the time I was pedaling. A couple of times, I thought about getting off my bike to walk, but that seemed like it would be even more work, and so I kept pedaling the whole time.

Interestingly, unlike the Kanc, there is no marker telling you that you’ve gotten to the top of Middlebury Pass, and the only indication that you have done so is that the road suddenly starts to head downhill, and you see a sign that looks like this:

Hallelujah! I had made it over the top of the pass, but some even more treacherous roadway was ahead of me. I saw a number of areas where road crews were out repairing parts of the road that had been damaged by flooding, and there were a number of places where the road was covered with dirt or gravel. Just south of Bread Loaf, near Ripton, I saw the house that last week had become “unmoored”–this was the term used by one of Ripton’s emergency management coordinators. It was surprisingly close to the side of Hwy 125, the road I was taking down from Middlebury Pass. Apparently about a dozen other homes had been evacuated in the area, and thankfully, it doesn’t appear anyone was seriously injured.

Lest you think this path through the Green Mountains has nothing to offer but hazardous roads and nature’s fury, I must tell you that this very same route is also filled with the natural beauty that inspired one of our greatest poets, Robert Frost, who was the only poet to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry. Not long after I crossed over the pass, I came to this marker honoring Frost, whose cabin is about a half mile off the road. I love his words quoted on the marker: “Breathes there a bard who isn’t moved/When he finds his verse is understood/And not entirely disapproved/By his country and his neighborhood?”

You might think that the literary attractions of this region began and ended with Robert Frost, but that may not be the case. I was quite intrigued by a Methodist Church just down the road in Ripton that is featuring a production of “An Evening with Franz Kafka.” How interesting–and too bad I’ve now headed too far off down the road to attend it.

You could drive the Middlebury Pass in a car, but if you do, there are some scenes you are likely to miss. Fortunately, as I was inching my way uphill, I was more than ready to stop, rest, and capture the moment for you.

I arrived at the Waybury Inn in East Middlebury around 3:30 p.m. The inn was founded in 1810 and is one of the oldest of its kind in the state. It is also apparently well-known for its use in exterior views on the Newhart television series.

As you can see from the photo below, taken in front of a side entrance to the inn, I got my first “road rash” of the trip when I stopped at the Middlebury College Bread Loaf campus that afternoon. As I was straddling my bike and snapping a couple pictures, I turned around to see if there was any traffic before getting back on the road. Meanwhile, the bike (which is pretty top-heavy with all the gear I have on it) slipped away from me and both the bike and I toppled over. An older woman, who struck me as an academic, was the only person to see this happen. She came over as I was picking myself up to make sure I was all right. I said “yes, so long as no one saw this happen because it is kind of embarrassing.” She promised she didn’t see a thing. I think she might be a psychology professor.

So, yes, today’s road had its ups and downs, but on the whole, I would say it was a very satisfying experience.