~Milo DuBois, class of 2025

A Hidden Gem of Burke Mt

The excitement lies in the exploration of the world around us.

~Jim Peebles

Sometimes, hard work and dedication is needed to have fun. Over this long weekend, I went skiing with my family at Burke Mountain. Getting to a good part of a ski run often involves getting through some rough, icy parts. Burke Mountain is nestled in the small ski town of Burke Vermont. The mountain is pretty much propped up by Burke Mountain Academy, a school dedicated to ski racing, with academics as a secondary priority. Ski racing demands steep hills with constant snow. Snow, as we all know, is in low supply these days, so the mountain needs to maintain a couple good trails throughout the entire season, namely a long, steep trail that divides the mountain into two sides. The left of the mountain encompasses many medium difficulty trails that are easy to go fast on, and the right has more black-diamond trails, and trails that go through the trees. These areas are mostly segregated, because of race practices in the middle making the mountain impossible to cross.

 On Monday afternoon, the last day I was skiing, I went to the right side of the mountain to go down a trail named Little Dipper, in an attempt to beat my personal record for speed, which was set at 45mph. It’s important to note that the previous day it had snowed at least 6 inches, and left the entire mountain covered in a light dusting of fresh snow. 

I had blown past two other skiers, and was right up on the edge of my skis just about to dive into a steep part of the trail, when a worn out trail sign reading East Bowl caught my eye. I remembered skiing it once before, but all I recalled was that it went through the woods and required a bit of walking both in and out of the trail. 

However, I consider myself a pretty competent skier, so I was up for the challenge. I readied my poles, and began to make my walk along a mostly flat path. It had little variation, except for various patches of harder snow and small downhills, which were always soon followed by an uphill of equal magnitude. 

After around five minutes, I finally encountered the first downhill. It looked a little icy, and had many moguls and rocks scattered around. I went down this, and felt each bump in the soles of my feet, taking in the stunning views of the mountains in the distance, made even better by the locally famous Willoughby Gap, a gap in the mountain range, with a large lake placed in between them. 

Then I noticed a little cutaway into the trees, with untouched powder tempting me. I figured I might as well go for it, and ducked under the branches of a nearby tree. At first I was euphoric about this decision, until the hill bottomed out and the snow thinned out. I first noticed these changes when I fell swerving away from an exposed patch of wet rock. I muttered some curses under my breath, and took my skis off to hike through the flat part. 

Once I found a suitable flat place to put my skis back on, my primary method of transportation switched to using my poles to traverse the adverse conditions. I was wondering just where last night’s snow went, if not here, when I saw a clearing. It was perfect. It had fresh powder everywhere. It was at a perfect angle. If my life was a movie, an incredible melody would begin to play right then. I joyfully skied down this, enjoying every moment of it, and right back to the lift.

 I found that this final part of East Bowl was worth the worse conditions to get there. If I didn’t put in the hard work of hiking through the trees to this trail, I never would have gotten to experience it. 

You need to take risks and put hard work into anything you do.

 You’ll never know all the fun that you might have missed.