Vermonters take to the rivers, lakes and mountains to escape the heat

Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 10:36 AM

Many Skimaven readers hail from the Northeast, so it's no surprise to you to hear that we are having a heatwave — even up here in northern Vermont. Temperatures have been in the 90s this week. We're hoping for 80s this weekend. 

People are floating around in lakes and rivers to beat the heat. The temperature of Lake Champlain has risen to 71 degrees. It was *very* easy to walk into the water last night. Some folks are heading to movie theaters and museums like ECHO in Burlington to cool off in the air conditioning.

It's even pretty darn warm up on the mountain summits. The high temperature atop Mount Mansfield was 79 degrees yesterday, breaking the old record of 78 degrees set on that date in 1988, according to Weather Underground. Still, I'll take 79 over 95 any day. Here's a link to a mountaintop photo from @heidiames on Twitter yesterday. And shown here is the July desktop calendar image of Mt. Mansfield for the Green Mountain Club.

As you might imagine, a woman with the moniker "Skimaven" is not all that fond of the heat.

The Skimeister and I are venturing outdoors in the morning and evening hours. (I've been watering the garden in the coolness of 9:30 at night!) We're finding water to dunk in and we're working away with the help of air conditioning; we gave in and fired up our window unit for the first time in two years.

I have found my self surfing the Web to visit South American ski resort Web sites just to see some snow. (Is that weird?) I have a link to some snowy Portillo, Chile, photos on the Skimaven Facebook page if you are similarly inclined.

All I can say is, keep the iced coffee coming! (Vermont Coffee Company dark roast over coffee ice cubes and cold milk. Ahhhh.....)

Photo: Rocky ridgeline of Mt. Mansfield taken for Green Mountain Club by Paul Hansen of Ecopixel.

Filed in: Ski towns in summer