Okemo Mountain

F. and I were up in Vermont (home of Best Breakfast) the other week for vacation, and we took a drive/walk up to the top of Okemo Mountain, right near Ludlow.

The drive itself is kind of alarming, as I guess we should have expected. And on the way down, the brakes started literally smoking — we smelled it for a whole day afterwards.

You get up part way, then the road is blocked off and you’re on your own. We followed the dirt road up to the top of the ski lifts. Along the way, there was an insane burst of wildflowers.

And then we started to see butterflies.

Lots of butterflies.

There were hundreds of these, all along the sides of the road.

After checking out the tops of the ski lifts, we found our way over to the fire tower (follow the blue trail).

I forget, there are either six or eight flights. Stay with it, the first one is rickety, but after that it feels pretty solid. And of course, the view. This one looks like a color-field painting.

Then looking down into the town of Ludlow.

We realized later that since we from our hotel room we could see the fire tower, somewhere down in that photo of the town we should be able to see the room from the tower.