Once-in-a-lifetime-event: How Vermonters experienced the total solar eclipse

For the first time in 92 years, the total eclipse of the sun will be visible from Vermont. With the northwest portion of the state, including Burlington, square in the path of totality, Vermont is expecting upwards of 250,000 visitors to join locals to experience what for many will be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

To mark this historic day, Burlington Free Press reporters April Barton, Dan D'Ambrosio, Sydney Hakes, Brent Hallenbeck and Megan Stewart posted themselves throughout Chittenden County and beyond to report on how the solar eclipse played out in our corner of the state.

While another total solar eclipse will fall on the United States in 2045, Vermont is outside of its path of totality.

Watch live: Solar eclipse coverage from across the nation

Headed to the baseball diamond to watch the eclipse

FAIRFAX - My first surprise this eclipse morning came when I opened my garage door to pull out my truck and head to St. Albans, and I saw a group of six people walking down Rose Road. That never happens in this small rural subdivision of nine homes on the outskirts of Fairfax.

Turns out it was my neighbor, Susan Day, and her sister, Janice Quartararo, plus their four children. They were headed to the baseball diamond in town, where they'll get a great view of the eclipse, if the clouds hold off. It's about a 5-mile walk from our neighborhood, so they got an early start.

Christian Quartararo was playing hooky from school in New York state, where he lives.

"I had school today, which is kind of a bogus thing," Quartararo said. "We're getting out early and I don't have any sports practice."

After all, how often does a total solar eclipse happen so close to your home and your aunt and cousins? Not that often.

-Dan D'Ambrosio

In St. George, eclipse viewers gather at Rocky Ridge

ST. GEORGE - It was 2 p.m. − about 15 minutes before the eclipse was to begin − and a crowd was already gathered at the Rocky Ridge Golf Course in St. George, ordering drinks from the bar inside the clubhouse to take outside to patio tables or lawn chairs they brought from home.

The grounds are too soggy for people to be lofting golf balls. Instead they decided to focus on another bright round object in the sky.

The lawn-chair crowd included Karen Waters and Nat Vander Els of St. George. Vander Els’ sister, Alix Vander Els, came up from Shaftsbury, joined by her boyfriend, Nick Laplaca of Queensbury, New York.

“It’s just so open, all around,” Waters said of the group’s perch, a badly shanked 50-yard shot away from the 10th hole tee box.

The fifth member of their party, Andrea Redican, came the night before from Springfield, New Hampshire. The onetime graduate-school roommate of Alix Vander Els, Redican said she was stuck in heavier traffic than she expected on the interstates, “with many of my closest friends from Massachusetts. We tolerated each other.”

After being in gridlock hours earlier, Redican said just as the eclipse began that she appreciated the viewing spot Waters selected for its “low mayhem quotient.”

-Brent Hallenbeck

There's an eclipse party going on in St. Albans

ST. ALBANS - There's a carnival-like atmosphere in Taylor Park under the bright sunshine, even busier than the farmer's market that sets up there in the summer. A band is playing and food trucks line the sidewalk next to Main Street. People are sitting or milling about everywhere.

A couple from Montana chatted with some locals they asked to take their picture. And on a bench near the fountain, which isn't running yet, Barb Fell from Minnesota sat and soaked in the scene as she waited for the big event − totality.

"This is like a fair, a festival," Fell said.

Fell and her husband, David, are retired. She was a teacher and he was a veterinarian. They drove about 1,600 miles from their home in Jackson, Minnesota, and are staying in Woodstock, where Fell was able to book three nights for $600, rather than $600 per night in the Burlington area.

"We did a lot of research," Fell said. "It was just luck we got Woodstock."

Jean Sebastian Leburn and his nine-year-old daughter, Juliette, sat on the next bench over from Fell. They got here from the Montreal suburbs in an hour. Montreal is on the path of totality, but it's a shorter duration than in Vermont.

"We just wanted to make a day out for the eclipse," Leburn said. "It's probably my last time seeing one in this region."

Leburn, 43, has a vague memory of a partial eclipse when he was a kid. This one will be better, and he thinks St. Albans is gorgeous to boot.

"I went to Burlington millions of times and never stopped in St. Albans," he said.

− Dan D'Ambrosio

'I've got 3 minutes to watch it'

ST. GLEORGE - A customer came into Simon’s Store & Deli around 3:10 p.m. to buy energy drinks. Skyler Gillilan hoped none would arrive 15 minutes later, when the total eclipse would start. If a customer did come in, he was ready to dash outside if he had to.

“I’ve got three minutes to watch it,” Gillilan said, referring to the length of totality, “so I’ve got time.”

No one else came into the store, so Gillilan snuck out a couple of minutes before the 3:26 p.m. total eclipse. The sky darkened, and a corona formed around the moon as it blocked the sun.

“That is gorgeous,” Gillilan said.

He tried to take photos with his smart phone but was disappointed at how they looked. He put the phone away, looked back at the sky and instead downloaded the scene into his long-term memory bank.

Gillilan took his solar glasses off to look at the total eclipse but soon put them back on. “It’s becoming too bright again. Yep, there it is,” he said as the sun started returning. “You can see it through the glasses, just barely.”

Then it was as if dawn descended upon St. Geroge in an instant. The once-dusky sky brightened. “It’s like morning in summer,” Gillilan said.

With that, Gillilan, wearing shorts and a short-sleeved shirt, retreated inside the store. Mosquitos, apparently thinking it was evening, had come out for dinner and found their way toward him – another early taste of summer.

-Brent Hallenbeck

All quiet on the Green Mountain Dairy front, until the sun comes back

SHELDON - When I arrived at Green Mountain Dairy, Bill Rowell was in his office, preparing his testimony for the Vermont Legislature on pesticide-coated seeds, which are being threatened with a ban. He had me read his notes. As 2:14 p.m. and the start of the eclipse approached, Rowell remained calm.

"It'll start slow," he said.

We headed to the calf barn, where Rowell talked to the calves like they're babies, glowing with pride in how healthy and energetic they look. After a stroll down to where the mothers are, we headed back to the office and Rowell suggested we drive his pickup the short distance to the edge of a vast field, where we can sit on the tailgate to watch the big event.

Rowell got a seat pillow out of his truck for me to sit on and a folded up coat for himself. As the moon began to nibble away at the sun, he commented on how quiet it was.

"This morning there were geese flying around," he said. "There were turkeys across the field in front of me in the field, when I came to work."

It's so wide open out here − more like the Oklahoma prairie than verdant Vermont − that I asked Rowell where else birds would even be.

"Right here you'll see them coming and going in the barn or you'll see them on the telephone lines," he answered. "When we were looking out the back we didn't see any in that big bunker full of corn silage. We didn't even see one, did we? Nothing flying, nothing roosting that we can see."

He's right. Darkness began to spread across the fields, a strange darkness, not like night, but something else.

"Look at that, very weird," Rowell said. "Look at it, it's like Biblical weird. Now she's just got a little sliver left. Oh, she's almost there. And she's gone. She's gone."

Rowell stood staring with his eclipse glasses at the darkened sun. He noticed a star. Or was it an airplane? The night light on the barn blinked on. The air cooled.

"You notice the breeze stopped?" Rowell asked. "There's no noise and look how cool it is. For Pete's sake."

A few minutes later, with just a sliver of the sun back, daylight returned. The cows started mooing again. A flock of birds wheeled overhead.

"Here it comes, here it comes," Rowell said. "Well the crowd isn't too bad here, is it?"

− Dan D'Ambrosio

UVM students intermingle with the masses

University of Vermont students Aly Jewel, James Murphy and Gabby Flory decided to brave the waterfront with the thousands of visitors coming to see the eclipse.

The three friends live in Burlington and chose to either walk or take the bus downtown Monday. Often cloudy in the spring, Vermont served its citizens well with clear visibility during the few hours of the eclipse.

The trio had a perfect view of the sky, among the hoards of other observers on Perkins Pier. They had also taken advantage of the park being an Obscura BTV location and providing food – Jewel was enjoying a hotdog with onions and ketchup and Flory had a bag of popcorn she was slowly picking from.

While the seniors are staying in Burlington for a year post-graduation, they knew they were lucky to experience this phenomenon in the town in which they live. The sentiment was echoed by nearby frenzied visitors packing up their belongings before weaving through pedestrian traffic, almost knocking down Champ – the beloved Vermont Lake Monsters mascot – in their rush.

-Sydney P. Hakes

He was pretty nonchalant about it all.

ST. GEORGE - Noah Smith pulled his U.S. Postal Service truck into the parking lot at Simon’s Store & Deli on Vermont 2A in St. George at 3:15 p.m., as the partial eclipse was nearing total eclipse. He took a break from his mail-delivery route to check out the once-in-a-lifetime view.

“Might as well,” he said as he got out of his truck and put his solar glasses on. “It’s here, and I’m here.”

He was more concerned about the aftermath. Once the total eclipse was done he would continue his route, and at the end of the day drive back to his home almost an hour away in Northfield, through what the state of Vermont was cautioning could be monumentally slow traffic.

“I’m a little worried about what people will be like when it’s over,” Smith said. “We’ll see. hopefully people will be smart.”

-Brent Hallenbeck

Last college hurrah in a green canoe

Those who left the house this afternoon, what essential items did you carry on your journey to watch the eclipse?

For five University of Vermont seniors, it was a large green canoe.

The students – Kaiya Wu, Kate Hunter, Lucy Mann, Maggie Loughnane and Aoi Tischer – lugged the boat several blocks to Waterfront Park in Burlington, dodging dozens of bewildered pedestrians who lined the busy sidewalks. They planned to take to the water – perhaps at North Beach – to avoid the large crowds on land, already numbering in the hundreds when they arrived just after noon.

The five seniors had met in the dorms as first-year students. Today’s canoe ride on Lake Champlain, they said, is basically their last hurrah before graduation.  

“It’s like the sun and moon aligned just for us,” Hunter said with a chuckle.

-Megan Stewart

Harnessing the energy of the universe

WILLISTON - For the Tower/Bell family from Monkton, the total solar eclipse was a rare opportunity to absorb the energy of the universe and channel it into objects.

“We’re into witchy stuff,” nine-year-old Daizie Tower explained. They brought crystals from home and lined up canteens of water which stood open to the air in order to make “moon water.” Mom, Tara, explained that usually you charge moon water under the full moon but they hoped the eclipse would make the water extra powerful for potion-making.

Several sticks stuck out of the ground as well. Daizie said, “You earn your wand. Mine is a level 10 and I’m hoping to get it to level 20.”

The foursome brought a picnic, basking in the sunshine at the Williston overlook while they snacked and Daizie played in the mud. Karmel, Daizie’s teddy bear, wore a pair of sunglasses while the rest donned eclipse glasses as they laid back like sunbathers catching sun and moon rays. The family was first in and last out at the location which looks out over Lake Champlain. They stayed the several hours it took for all of partiality, even while others left, so they wouldn’t miss a moment.  

-April Barton

A spectacular sight over Lake Champlain

In friendly Vermont fashion, the crowd at Perkins Pier in Burlington welcomed the total solar eclipse with cheers and applause.

The daylight had been slowly fading for the past 10 minutes, and the crowd murmured in acknowledgement of the change in the air. The temperature dropped, and many people were seen putting their sweatshirts back on – previously having been abandoned in the sunny, 60-degree Green Mountain heat.

As less of the sun was seen, birds that make the shores of Lake Champlain their home began to speak up. In their confusion over a much too early sunset, they began flying over the crowd. Many people noticed but didn’t comment on it for long as the moon fully intersected with the sun.

Experiencing this once-in-a-lifetime event sent people into a joyous state, cheering and clapping when totality began and ended. It was hard to parse what people were saying during that time, as the spectacularism of the moment was hard to look away from.

Almost as soon as it began, the eclipse ended. After a final cheer, the crowd began packing their folding chairs up and stuffing their chip bags into coolers, hoping to beat the traffic out of town.

-Sydney P. Hakes

'Where's the moon?'

ST. GEORGE - Minutes after the total eclipse ended, Dan Pitts sat in a chair outside his home at a trailer park in St. George as his neighbor, Mike Kirby, stood nearby. They marveled at what they had just experienced.

Before totality, Pitts had glimpsed at the sun and saw no sign of the moon. “Where’s the moon?” he wondered. “The moon should be getting closer.” Then he put his solar glasses on and could see the silhouette of the moon slowly swallow the sun. When totality hit he could see the glowing dot of Jupiter near the eclipse.

“It was pretty cool,” Pitts said.

He and his neighbor noticed elements of the eclipse they hadn’t totally expected. “You could feel the temperature drop 15 degrees,” Kirby said.

Pitts noticed during totality that the solar lights outside his house came on. So did the lights in the parking lot across Vermont 2A at Simon’s Store & Deli. It was, Pitts said, “not pitch-black, but it got pretty dark.”

-Brent Hallenbeck

A 49-year-old telescope lands in Burlington

Chris Finnell, 61, of Hampton, New Hampshire, received his prized Montgomery Ward telescope as a seventh grader in 1975.

Forty-nine years later, Finnell got the chance to use the telescope again when he and his wife, Beth, drove to Burlington to view the solar eclipse.

“It’s been collecting dust for decades,” said Finnell, who chose to watch the celestial event from Waterfront Park. “I wasn’t sure if it was going to work.”

Luckily, his trusty device stood the test of time, and he could watch the progress of the eclipse on a metal square attached to the telescope.

“It’s rudimentary,” he said. “I’m not sure it’s much better than Galileo’s telescope, but it works.”

Finnell, an aeronautical and astronomical engineer, said he held onto the telescope to show his children, now grown, “what was possible” by watching the skies.

For instance, while serving in the Coast Guard, Finnell learned how to navigate by using the stars as guidance.

This experience solidified his love for space and sky.

“It’s amazing what you can do” when you understand how the stars work, Finnell said.

-Megan Stewart

Aligning with strangers under the eclipse

WILLISTON - In Williston, more than the sun and moon aligned to draw about 50 total strangers together to enjoy the total solar eclipse together.

Just a few days earlier the immediate area received more than a foot of snow but most of it had melted and the early April weather, which is normally cloudy and cold, was in the low 60s with sunny skies. In fact, the Burlington area was forecasted to have some of the best visibility in all of North America among areas in the path of totality.

Many of the people who came to the neighborhood trail that offers views of Lake Champlain were out-of-staters. Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Yorkers were represented, mixing with locals who were surprised so many came to this spot to marvel in this once-in-a-lifetime event. Willistonian Tiffiny Moore had a spot on a bench next to Louis Renaux, a Bostonian originally from Paris, France.

The two chatted much of the time and neither knew what to expect, hoping to be open to the moment.

“It was cold,” Renaux remarked afterward. “There’s barely a sliver of the sun and yet it’s light. You don’t understand the power of the sun,” Moore said as totality had ended just a few minutes earlier.

“It was amazing – it was like the Twilight Zone,” said Taylor Kendall who travelled six hours one way from New York City and would be making that drive again shortly afterward with Sam Marshall. Marshall was impressed by the afternoon sunset. “I thought it was going to be totally dark but there was orange everywhere. It was a 360 degree sunset.”

An Albany area family relied on Google to find a short hike with nice views, which is how they ended up in Williston. “It came out just perfect.” said Amber Munhall.

Monkton resident Tara Tower said, “This is probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Despite being from all over they now have this shared experience from a hilltop in Williston, Vermont. Together they witnessed the skies turning dark for just a few minutes before they parted ways probably to never run across each others' paths again − unlike the sun and moon. But, it will be a long time before Vermont will experience it once again. 

-April Barton