Landscape Archives - Page 2 of 2 - Vermont Photographer Benjamin D. Bloom

Champ is taking advantage of the high water in the lake to make the rounds to businesses he can’t normally reach. Here he is outside the Vermont Lake Monsters front office down at the King St. ferry dock in Burlington.

Champ, Lake Champlain's lake monster, is back in his element.

He’s not very bashful right now and hung around for a few portraits while I was walking around the waterfront.

For those of you that haven’t made it down to Perkins Pier to see the flooding, here are a few shots of what it looks like now. According to NOAA, the lake is at 100.7′. I’ve heard reports that it is supposed to crest 101′ and with 80″ of snow remaining on Mt. Mansfield I have little doubt that we’ll get there.

Normally, these benches are a nice place to watch the sun set and be safe from waves. Today, you’d be hard pressed to get out there without hip waders.

For comparison, here’s what it looked like last March. The dark line on the water is the Burlington breakwater which is completely submerged right now.

An early March sun sets behind the Adirondack mountains and Lake Champlain.

Winter releases her grip on Vermont’s fields

This time of year is special in Vermont. Most of the country is talking about how nice it is to have spring; farmers are planting crops and flowers are in bloom. Here in Vermont, we might have snow on the ground or we might have 60 degree days. This week, we had both.

On my drive home yesterday, I had to pull over to the side of the road to photograph Mt. Mansfield basking in the late afternoon sun with the golden, just barely uncovered, fields in the foreground.

It reminded me of the trip that Tawny and I took to Iceland a few years back. It was April 29th, and the landscape looked very similar. Snow in the hills, golden grasses and fields clinging to the volcanic earth. It was all very beautiful; I’d love to see it in both full summer and winter.

I love living in a northern climate. Sure. Sometimes it’s hard that the days are shorter than most of the country, that we have feet more snow to shovel, that you sometimes don’t see your neighbors for weeks at at time because it’s too cold to venture across the street. I think it makes you appreciate the change of seasons. I’d get bored if it was always perfect weather all the time. Plus, it’s hard to ski when it’s 70 and sunny (though I’m told that Vermont’s headed for 60 this weekend and there’s still plenty of snow in the mountains!)