First dip

Back in Vermont, after months of rain-soaked England, and no sooner do I arrive than it turns unseasonably cold, gray and drizzly. Of course, back in Blighty they're having the first spell of really hot sunny weather all year. I would wonder if I was a rain god if it weren’t for Monday and Tuesday, when I got so excited about the hot, southern sun beating down that I actually drove over to Bolton potholes for a dip.

I rolled up and parked behind a guy in brown waders unloading tackle from a truck. He eyed my beach bag and lack of fishing gear. "You’re not going in are you?" he asked incredulously. "Yep," I told him, remembering suddenly how close to May it was. I hiked through the woods and dropped my stuff on a gravely patch next to the water. The air was cooler here, and it was a little buggy. The waterfalls rushed over the stones, looking more like a cateract of snowmelt than anything else. I thought about how this stream ran right off the mountain, and wondered just when it was that the last patches of snow up there had actually gone. Hmm. Maybe I needed to get a little bit hotter.

Twenty minutes later I stood up, shed my cutoffs, and picked my tender spring feet over to the water’s edge. I took a deep breath, and strode boldly in. YEAOWCH!

I just found this great site run by the Vermont River Conservancy, which uses Google Earth to map the best swimming holes in the state, and has directions and descriptions and pictures, like the one above.