WINDSOR — As a light rain fell on the dirt trails that weave through Mount Ascutney State Park Saturday morning, Zach Herman pulled the tarp a little tighter over his campsite and grinned.
“Our spirits are dry,” he said with a laugh.
Herman and his five friends, all from New York City, had made their way up to Vermont this weekend for their second summer camping trip in a row.
But this year, with vaccines and without masks, the worry and anxiety that permeated last year’s trip is gone, the friends said.
“We’re so excited for summer,” said Jack Steele, one member of the group. He said that, since all of the friends are vaccinated, this is the first vacation they have taken in a year without the added stress of COVID-19.
Mount Ascutney State Park, which opened for the season two weeks ago, was one of the first Vermont State Parks to open this month. The rest of the parks all opened by Friday.
Despite the temperatures, which were as low as the high 30s on top of Mount Ascutney, and the weather — rain at the bottom of the mountain and snow at the top — people from all over New England took advantage of the newly reopened park Saturday.
For many campers this weekend was not just the typical Memorial Day weekend to celebrate the start of summer; it was also a chance to celebrate the end of the yearlong, isolating, COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s been a hard year,” said Patti Dezan, a nurse and Windsor resident who rented a campsite at the park with her husband Saturday.
The couple, pulled their camper up to a small site among the trees, set up seats around a fire pit with their two dogs, and reflected on a difficult year.
With a choked voice, Dezan recalled that she couldn’t physically hold her first grandchild, born last year, until March because of the pandemic. For months, all she could do was wave at the newborn through windows and computer screens.
Now, with eligible adults vaccinated, the couple is planning summer trips with family and friends.
“We’re relieved and cautiously optimistic,” Dezan said with a smile.
Still, she added, as a nurse she’s trying to be extra careful. State parks like Mount Ascutney provide a “kind of in-between” space to meet with loved ones — not total isolation and not entirely indoors, she explained.
That’s a feeling shared by others who pitched tents and parked RVs at the park Saturday.
“It’s nice to safely be able to do recreational things,” said Rob Wholley, who traveled from Hull, Mass., to visit the park for the weekend with his fiancee and friends.
Standing under a large blue tarp with a guitar slung over his back and a 12-year-old Springer Spaniel named Blue lying at his feet, Wholley looked like a picture of summer in Vermont.
“It was a long winter,” he said, looking around at the trees and then back at his dog. “Are you happy to be in the woods, buddy?” he asked Blue, who replied with an affirmative wag.
Wholley said his group, which gathered to celebrate his brother-in-law receiving his master’s degree, had planned this trip for a while. Later, he said, they were going to have to have a mini-party at a gazebo higher up the mountain.
Julie Bloom, one of the friends from New York City gathering at the site this weekend, said the opening of the state parks presented a chance to get away, not just from the city but from the stress of the pandemic.
“It’s nice to leave that all behind,” she said. “It feels like coming home.”
Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.