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 On a fine winter’s day, we all met up at Dave’s nearly completed home in New Hampshire. We were treated to coffee and a house tour. It was hard to imagine that this was the same place where we had PhD outings of yesteryear during the early days of its construction.
The group then proceeded northward through Franconia Notch and into Vermont. During a previous stay in the Northeast Kingdom, Matt had become smitten with a pizza place called Parker Pies located in the tiny village of West Glover. We stopped there for lunch at his insistence and were not disappointed. It was amazing that such a little out-of-the-way place located in the back of a general store produced such fantastic pizza.
  Full of pizza, we pressed on through Barton and up snowy Wheeler Mountain road to the path leading to the two cabins on the pond, one of which was to be our shelter for the duration. The camps were set back from the road a few hundred yards so we loaded our gear onto the plastic sleds provided and hauled it in. A steep pitch just in front of the camp made for some tricky maneuvering. We were staying at the Beaver Dam camp which was perched at the edge of the pond. The layout of the place consisted of two rooms and a loft. The main room was a cooking and eating area containing the all-important wood stove. A bunkroom was just off the main room with sleeping platforms for four and a ladder leading up to the loft. Despite the rustic charm of the place, it was soon dubbed a “rat hole” by one of our party and name stuck for the rest of our visit.  The privy was new and clean and in some ways more appealing than the camp itself. The supply of wood for the stove was plentiful, despite instructions from the GMC telling us not to be wasteful and burn it trying to stay warm. With the short afternoon starting to fade, we set out on the first event of the trip; hiking Wheeler Mountain.
We drove the short distance to the Wheeler Mountain trailhead, just up the road. Snow conditions were a little crusty due to a heavy rain followed by a freeze up that had occurred earlier in the week. A few inches of fresh snow improved things a bit. As we got ready to start out, a wide-ranging debate developed concerning the relative merits of various foot gear accessories. Borb extolled the benefits of a product called Microspikes. Tom had also procured a pair in preparation against icy conditions. Dave and Charlie had a different sort of ice tread devices that proved to be inferior and easily lost. As usual, Matt was slow to adopt new technology preferring to rely on his natural abilities and cat-like reflexes and snowshoe-sized boots. He scoffed at our new gear.
 As we started out, the trail wended its way through the hardwood forest and onto ledges overlooking the valley. As we moved further along the open ledges, we were rewarded with views that opened up to the south and east. The trail ended at Eagle Cliff with a fine view of frozen Lake Willoughby and the icy cliffs Mt. Pisgah.
To no one’s surprise, Charlie announced that a geocache was located somewhere nearby, pointing in the general direction of a snow drift. He and Dave disappeared off the trail into the underbrush to obtain the prize, but were thwarted by deep snow conditions.
We picked up Borb again on the descent and returned to the parking lot without incident. All piled in and drove back the short distance to the parking area for the camps. Here's a map of the harrowing trek.
 With the snow falling lightly, some of us ventured out onto the frozen pond & took in the surroundings. Back in the camp we settled into a familiar routine. Wine bottles were uncorked and Dave served up appetizers while Matt got to work making dinner – homemade ravioli’s with meat sauce. We feasted on the fine cooking and enjoyed the warmth as the woodstove started to kick in. During the evening Dave proposed various schemes to commercialize our humble organization so that we might seek to profit from our modest recreations. He seemed not to be discouraged by our lack of support for his proposals. Everyone settled in, hoping for a peaceful night’s sleep. The peace and quiet, however, was interrupted by the penetrating racket of Matt reinflating his leaky air mattress with a borrowed battery-powered compressor. Surely a PhD award in the making.
 The next morning Borb awoke first thing and set to work preparing his renowned ormelettes, made to order with various fillings. These were up to the usual high standard and prepared us for another day of semi-vigorous adventure. Before that, we took another tour of the frozen pond, investigating an alleged beaver lodge on the far side of the pond. Despite the low temperature, the stream outlet for the pond was unfrozen.
 Kingdom Trails in East Burke was the site where Dave, Borb and Tom planned to go x-c skiing while Matt and Charlie went on another hike. There was only just barely enough fresh snow for x-c trails to have been tracked. The guy from x-c center suggested we stay on two groomed trails and pointed the way. Borb popped on his skis and headed off in another direction. The ski area guy advised us not to follow him to which we replied, “We never do”! Matt and Charlie ventured off into the wilds, across windswept and scenic places – perhaps some of the best views of the trip.
 Dave meanwhile struggled in vain to strap on his skis. Tom tried to help but the boots wouldn’t engage in the ski bindings. Dave eventually decided to seek help and went into the little ski center building hoping for assistance. Tom skied down the trail for a while to where he found Borb, then looped back to check on Dave’s progress. It seemed that Dave had brought along his wife’s skis but his own boots, which it were incompatible. The ski center guy rescued Dave with some extra boots he found in the attic. Dave was ready at last!
Tom and Dave ventured back out onto the trail and made a pleasant loop through woods and fields. We expected to find Borb out on the trail, but he was nowhere to be found.  Dave and Tom eventually made our way back to the little ski center building but still no Borb! As we waited, Charlie and Matt came back from their hike talking about a most awesome view they had at the top of a hill on a trail marked “most difficult”. ( Charlie continues to impress his compatriots walking through the wilds on such treacherous and “most difficult” trails using metal and polyethelene for support. A heart hiker..
After a while longer we started to wonder if Borb had become disoriented and wandered off. Tom started back out onto the trail thinking he might come upon Borb’s frozen corpse around each corner. It turned out to be nothing so dire. Borb was methodically making his way back up the incline to the ski center building at his own pace.
A map of the Burke hike.
After our morning exertions, we decided to drop into East Burke to get some lunch. The only option available was a gas station/convenience store/deli place where we picked up sandwiches.  We then drove up Darling Hill Road to take in the views while we refueled. At this point Borb noting the windswept conditions opted to return to the rat-hole to stoke the fire and take the opportunity to cross country ski on the virgin snow of the frozen pond.  The rest of us took a hike along a ridge behind the Wildflower Inn, rewarded with classic Northeast Kingdom views that stretched from Burke Mountain and the Willoughby Gap to the Green Mountains in the distance. Chilled by a stiff wind, we cut the trek short and got back in the car. We drove through the back roads of Burke and Newark guided by Charlie’s GPS eventually arriving at the south end of Lake Willoughby. A collection of fishing shacks in the cove suggested that the nudist colony was practicing naked ice fishing. Tom ventured out onto the ice to explore a bit, followed reluctantly by the rest of the crew. The safety of the ice was called into question, and Tom was warned to get off or surely perish. Sensibility reigned. We could have died! Back in the car again, we drove around to the north end of the lake where we came upon some people sitting in an ice fishing shack. The shack was not on the ice but actually sitting on the beach, which must have made for some pretty poor fishing. The folks inside didn’t seem to mind though. Later on, Borb revealed to the rest of the PhD’s that he had returned by a similar route and also stopped at that exact spot. To Borb’s New Jersey mind, the shack looked like it must have been a snack bar sitting there on a empty beach in northern Vermont in the middle of the winter, so he walked up to it and tried to order a diet Pepsi. The shack inhabitants weren’t able to help him but have a story to tell about the clueless guy from New Jersey for years to come.
 When we returned to roaring fire at the rat-hole, we came upon Borb clutching a beer and his cell phone headed for his car, where he planned to run the heater and call home while conversing with the home front. Charlie, Matt and Tom embarked on one more hike before sunset. We scrambled up the Moose Mountain trail to a clearing at the top of a ledge that looked back over Wheeler Pond and the camps. It was a most satisfying end to the day.  At some point, Tom’s unnatural thermoregulatory system forced him to partially disrobe and go bare-chested so he didn’t sweat through all of his gear. At about 15 degrees F, it was quite a sight. Some of us can’t get it out fo our minds to this day.
Once back at the camp, Charlie and Tom teamed up to make an Indian Dinner of chickpea choli, chicken shwarma, naan and rice. We made way too much, but it made for leftovers that the bachelor Charlie could bring home. We whiled away the evening tending the fire, taking occasional excursions outside and eventually turned in.
The next morning Borb always the early riser, was packed up and ready to go before first light. It seemed he couldn’t leave the rat-hole fast enough! The rest of us straggled along and we departed for Barton again. Tom had promised to stop at the little C&C grocery store to pick up locally produced bacon to bring home. While we waited ten or so minutes for the store to open, Charlie finally got the chance to score a geocache. His GPS informed him that one was located across the street at the Barton public library. Charlie, the 26th best geocacher in the state of Massachusetts, sprang into action and began poking around in the bushes outside the library. Dave thought for sure the Barton police department would be arriving on the scene at any minute, but Charlie being the proficient cacher that he is, found the little box of trinkets took his pictures and declared victory before the local law enforcement officials became alarmed. With the bacon in hand, we headed for Lyndonville to have breakfast at the legendary Miss Lyndonville Diner. Despite, or perhaps because of, our scruffy appearance we fit right in with the regulars. The service, the food, and the atmosphere were all first rate. We exited the restaurant and headed for home, having enjoyed another in a series of fine PhD adventures!
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