Page 18 - Jan_14

reader athlete
STEVE SNOOK

Age: 53 | Residence: Newbury | Family: Wife, Annie Kitson; son, Tucker; daughter, Katie | Occupation: Environmental engineer
Primary sport: Running, telemark, and Nordic skiing

STEVE SNOOK IS A MAN WHO LIKES SETTING GOALS.

AFTER BAGGING ALL THE 4,000-FOOT PEAKS IN THE
NORTHEAST, HE DECIDED TO TRY SOMETHING CLOSER TO

HOME. THE VERMONT DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL

CONSERVATION EMPLOYEE AND HIS WIFE ATTEMPTED

TO TAKE PART IN SOME FORM OF ACTIVITY IN EACH OF
VERMONT’S STATE PARKS OVER THE COURSE OF 2013.

VS: Have you always been a runner?
Green Mountain Marathon in the islands SS: I qualified for Boston once but that VS: I understand you’ve also hiked the full

SS: I was briefly a runner when I gradu- as a training run for the Stone Cat 50-mil- was the year the race filled up in eight Appalachian Trail, is that correct?
ated from college and needed to do some- er in Ipswich, Massachusetts. I decided to hours, and I missed my chance. After SS: I did it in bits and pieces. I did some
thing for exercise. I did a few races in run for seven miles before the marathon that, they changed the qualifying times. as a Scout when I was in high school,
my 20s, but I didn’t stick with it and just because my interest was in trying to run My next age group would allow me to and then between my undergraduate and
qualify with a 3:40. This year was my graduate work, I went to Georgia and
ran for fitness. When I started working for five hours to prepare for Stone Cat.
for DEC, I got exposed to more of a run- One problem with that is it made me a best year at 3:33 because the weather was hiked about half the trail during the sum-
ning culture, and in the spring of 2005, minute late for the start of the race so I cool, but I needed a 3:30.
mer. Each year after that, I’d do another
a colleague took me out on a three-mile had to run around dozens of spectators. week. Ironically, my first section was a
loop in Waterbury. I couldn’t even run VS: Speaking of goals, in 2013, you hike from New Jersey to the Delaware
The Stone Cat race has four loops of 12 and your wife decided to do some ac-
the whole thing. I had to take breaks to miles, and that’s where I discovered that Water Gap, and the last section was from
walk. But that fall, I did a half-marathon, cold weather is really good for me. It’s a tivity in each of Vermont’s state parks. Pennsylvania to the other side of the Gap,
and the following year, I trained up to fun race because it’s a trail marathon and How did that go?
facing where I had started.
a full marathon. That year, a bunch of a 50-miler, and they’re totally flexible. If SS: We managed 45 of 52 (as of Dec. 21),
but we had to put the project on hold be- VS: I’ve heard you’ve summited all the
people from work ran the marathon so you sign up for the marathon and want
there were a lot of people to do longer to keep going, you can; and if you sign cause we’re in the process of moving. It 4,000-foot peaks in New York and New
runs with. I’ve done the Vermont City up for the 50-miler and want to quit after started when we realized we could buy a Hampshire. Tell us about that.
Marathon every year since then, in part three loops, they’ll give you a 371⁄2-mile state park pass for $25, so we each got SS: Actually, I’ve done Vermont and
one in our Christmas stockings. There Maine, as well. I did all the New Hamp-
because it requires me to get in shape. I’m time. My wife had taken our daughter to
a goal-oriented person so it’s a good thing look at colleges, and they came out for the are 52 parks, and we had a rule that we shire ones in the winter, the Vermont and
to have that out there.
last lap. I felt so good that I think if they had to do something in each park. We’ve Maine ones in the summer, and New
hadn’t been there I might have done an bicycled, cross-county skied, canoed, York was a mix. I finished the Adiron-
VS: You haven’t stopped with mara- hiked, and camped. It’s been harder in dack 46ers this summer. I did a few with a
extra lap.
thons, though, have you? places that don’t have day-use areas, so friend from high school when we were in
SS: I did my first 50K in September of VS: You said you’re goal oriented. Have you sometimes we’ve just walked through the our 20s, and then we came back together
2010, and the following month, I did the
tried to qualify for the Boston Marathon?
campgrounds. Some park staff have been years later and decided to try to knock off
more obliging than others in that respect. the full list.
In Maidstone, they let us drive close to

the waterfront to canoe even though we VS: So you do winter as well as summer
weren’t camping there.
hiking?
SS: I’ve got a group of friends from col-
VS: Have there been some interesting lege, and every winter we go for a three-
discoveries?
or four-day weekend, typically in the
SS: We went to North Hero when it was Adirondacks so we can combine winter
inundated by the floods and found two camping and backcountry skiing. We do
bucketed pot plants, which we photo- routes like Marcy Dam, Avalanche Lake,
graphed with the caption “invasive spe- and Johns Brook Valley. We’ve also done

cies.” We are also surprised to see a fence a few trips in the White Mountains, head-
all along the path at Quechee Gorge. Oth- ing to Zealand Falls or Carter Notch
er places like Bingham Falls aren’t fenced Huts; and in good snow years, we’ve even
at all.
gone to Pennsylvania. We all like to ski,

and it’s an excuse to get together. The
VS: Any hidden gems?
two friends who got this started used to
SS: We had some beautiful paddling off head to the White Mountains every win-
Knight Island, and we were surprised by ter wearing wool clothing and using duct

how large Lake Carmi was. I’ve run and tape and klister instead of climbing skins.
skied around Waterbury Reservoir, but That’s how the tradition started.
for this project, we canoed there, which
I’d never done. We enjoyed all the parks —Phyl Newbeck
for different reasons.

18 VTSPORTS.COM
JANUARY 2014