Chapter 1: Mt. Philo
Also known as “Mt. why though?”, “Mt. high, bro”, and “Mt. I-literally-just-saw-someone-wearing-birkenstocks-and-socks, yo.”
Mount Philo is not a real mountain. Mount Philo is a tiny hill that you can actually walk your pug and/or screaming toddler up. Yep, we saw both. We may or may not have been panting harder than the pug. Seriously. There is a PAVED. ROAD. Also a trail, which we elected to take. It took approximately 15 minutes to reach the top (yes, we walked) and featured a live power line (pro tip: don’t pee on it) and a couple doing some *very* heavy petting.
Seriously.
We found a fun walking stick, which made for many Lion King jokes. Here is a photo of Erin posing as Rafiki.
We also found some strange fungus growing on a tree on the way down. Here is a photo of Emma pointing at it dubiously.
Difficulty rating: 0.25. Which, incidentally, is approximately the number of miles we walked on this “hike.”
Boyfriend rating: definitely safe for a Tinder date (Refer to heavy-petting couple seen above)
Latte rating (how many lattes we needed to make it through the hike): maybe like half of one, if you really didn’t sleep the night before
In case you still don’t get the picture, Erin actually wore sandals to climb this pathetic excuse for a mountain. It was a not difficult trek. Of course, as neither of us have been to the gym in recent decades (”Hey! I went last January!” -Erin), we did sweat more than we feel comfortable admitting.
Best places to squat: the actual public restrooms at the “summit”
Best place to go for a swim afterwards: Shelburne Bay, which is about twenty minutes from the state park
Best place for post-hike refreshments: Shelburne Country Store, which is on the way back to civilization (aka Burlington). They have EVERYTHING: fudge, penny candy (which they now charge 3-10 cents for, but still, not bad), a Nantucket Nectars fridge, and, most importantly, MAPLE CREEMEES
*Things that were said on this hike*
“Sh*t, I forgot to take Zyrtec today”
“Portia is Brutus’s harlot, NOT his wife!” (shouted)
“I wish you could put footnotes on a blog post”
“I practiced so much Bach today I can’t even think anymore”
“I think I see a feral cat! Oh no, it’s just an unleashed poodle”
“Last time I was here, I was in second grade”
“Last time I was here, my professor suggested throwing all the annoying second graders off the mountain”
“Doesn’t your friend run up Mt. Philo? As like, a warm-up?”
Tune in next time, when we might actually climb a mountain that requires proper footwear!
We’ll leave you with this picturesque view of Vermont. It makes it look like the elevation is a lot higher than it actually was, but that is simply because it is damn near impossible to take a bad picture of a Vermont landscape.
E&E
@basichikes