Finding the best view of Lake Champlain

This weekend, Rick and I visited our dear friends Wayne and Susan in Richmond, Vermont and as part of the festivities, we climbed a mountain I had never heard of before, Mount Philo (pronounced FIE-lo, not like the Greek pastry sheet).
     Because we’re training for a hut climb in the White Mountains in June, Rick and I wore backpacks for the roughly one-mile, fairly vertical hike.
     As hikes go, it was pretty easy – a paved road, with lots of day hikers and LOTS of dogs.
     But there was also trillium, those delicate three-leaved flowers that appear only in spring. And wild columbine growing along the path. And birds singing their spring songs. And at the top, stop-in-your-tracks views of Lake Champlain, with a foreground of plowed farm fields and shiny-roofed barns, and glimpses of the Adirondacks in the distance.
     Mount Philo may not have the best views of Lake Champlain of any place around but if it doesn’t, I’d love to see the place that does.
     Just to keep us humble, I guess, it snowed on the drive up to Vermont. Made those signs of spring on the mountain even sweeter.