Road Trip in The Rig: Dartmouth College Skiway (Ski Area #1)

View from the top of the Dartmouth Skiway, Holt's Ledge. 

I packed up The Rig for a road trip to Dartmouth's Skiway. Just north of Hanover NH,  the Skiway is 150 miles from Rumford. Hiking ski areas is one of the adventures I most enjoy. I like the quiet of a closed ski area; the ski trails are usually well-groomed in the off season. The Skiway is a grass surface. So's Black Mountain in Maine's. Up on Sunday River, I often hike Lollapalooza that has a crushed rock and gravel access road and in places a grass trail. Saddleback is a typical hiking trail but is always in the sun. Before heading up, I chatted with one of the employees who took a liking to Bailey. He gave me good advice on the driest way up and also explained how to get to the overlook.

Dartmouth Skiway
We hiked up to Holt's Ledge

The temperatures hit 70 during the hike. That's the warmest we've experienced since last October. Bailey found a muddy stream to lie down in half way up the trail. On the way down we were adjacent to a trail with snowmaking, so he spent time rolling around in that. On the way back we stopped in St. Johnsbury as walked around the downtown area. I've stayed in this town for ski meets–they have an artistic cinema and diners plus an independent school called St. Johnsbury Academy.

Ready to roll. 

The trail we hiked called Papoose, seen in the map above, looked like this all the way up. 

Here's the starting hut. 

Note the ski area in the upper right. I wonder if that's Killington, Vermont

Happy Mud Dog 

Ditto. 

Up at Holt's Ledge... 

This fellow was an assistant ski coach at Dartmouth for many years. Kind of a fun tribute.  

Heading back down. 

On the way north toward St Johnsbury VT we stopped at a turnoff to look at the flood waters.