Green Mountains

If there's one place I never would have imagined myself going on vacation, it would have been anywhere in New England. With all apologies to everyone I knew or know up there, I have to confess I supremely disliked growing up there as a new immigrant from the original England. I'm still bothered by it today even though I know I should let it go already.

Maybe I got unlucky hitting the educational system starting in the 6th grade but the fixation in history classes on the American Revolutionary War and the British (i.e. me) being the enemy made me feel unwelcome. Teachers telling our class lies like the British still refer to the United States as "the colonies" and that people in the United Kingdom in the 1970s still feel the sting of the loss of a war 200 years prior didn't make it any better. And I do get that should let it go. Really, I do.

Given all that history, I was a little surprised with myself when I pencilled in a summer trip to Maine with some funds that United Airlines refused to return to me when I cancelled a March vacation down to Costa Rica.I guess I somehow allowed an exception for Maine in my blackballing of New England and this global pandemic has everything turned upside down anyway.

We never made it to Maine. Ultimately, we decided their entrance policy for tourists being dependent on a quick-turnaround, reliable negative virus test was too risky. But the slippery slope I had put us on by thinking about New England as a fun place to go made us decide to look just two states west to Vermont. By the time I knew what I had done, I found myself on a Wednesday night in Vermont eating some of the best English style fish and chips with mushy peas I've ever had in this country. Oh, the irony.

Paper Mill Village Bridge, Bennington.

In our almost four days in the Green Mountain State, we covered from the very southwest corner of Vermont all the way up to the very northeast corner of the state. We spent a ton of time driving on this trip and I'm still not sure how we ended up with all the time inside our Jeep Renegade. I mean, the state's not really that big, is it? There are lots of roads, I guess.

We sneaked into the state from upstate New York and stayed in Bennington for the first night before winding our way north to Burlington, completing our maple syrup pilgrimage (HAD to!) and starting our tour of Vermont breweries along the way. We used Burlington as a base for exploring the upper half of the state. And when I say exploring, I really mean driving around looking at a lot of nature. Although not quite so much as we hoped.

Our idea behind Bennington was to use it as a way stop, a town to spend a night along the way to break up the journey and we did something here we rarely, if ever, do: just showed up and started looking for stuff to see. I don't want to categorize our time in Bennington as completely spontaneous, but it was as close as we likely will ever come to that.

So what did we do in Vermont after checking in? Literally the first thing that popped into my head was "covered bridges". Bennington has three. Or more accurately, Bennington has three within like three miles of our hotel. Seriously, we saw I think two others in the rest of our almost four days in the state after checking out three of them in the first hour we were there.

The Bennington Battle Monument, as seen from the ground.

I remember visiting covered bridges (probably in Vermont) as a kid and hating them. What's the big deal? It's just a wooden tunnel that spans a river. And maybe hate's the wrong word but that's what I'd probably have said back then. I'd rather have been playing Pac-Man, I'm sure. 

But as a work of engineering (now that I'm an adult of sorts), even as over designed as some of these things are I'm sure, there is an elegance and usefulness in building a box truss that takes advantage of the structure's height and width to create a one lane tunnel (and most all of them are one way) to drive a horse and cart or automobile over a river or creek. We saw three. We drove over all three.

We also found the Bennington Battle Monument, which according to their own website is the state's most popular historic site. And yes, it was erected (albeit more than 100 years after the fact) to celebrate a victory over the British during the American Revolutionary War. There are a couple of statues of minutemen or whatever they are nearby the Monument. I'm electing to just post a picture of the masonry structure against the blue sky backdrop when we were there rather than including statues. Probably because I'm bitter. Or something. There's some fake resentment going on in this post but there's an undercurrent that's real. Let's move on to something else. I know...I need to get over this.

Besides a sort of spontaneous stop in Bennington, a visit to a maple syrup farm and a half a dozen brewery drive-bys, there were a couple of other priorities we had for our Vermont trip. But before we get to those, I have to say I think we were both so impressed by the beauty of Vermont itself. I mean we knew it was the Green Mountain State and that its very name was derived from the French for green (vert) and mountains (monts) but the whole place is literally mountains (if you allow that mountains can be less than 4,500 feet above sea level) that are covered in trees. We've taken a couple of gorgeous drives earlier this year (both out in Colorado) and driving though Vermont approached both of those in terms of impressive-ness. I have to say I didn't really expect to get that out of a long weekend in New England.

So about those couple of other things. First, I had to set foot on the Long Trail. And second, I needed to see a moose. A lot of control over the first one but not a whole lot of control over the other.

The Long Trail is basically a really long hiking trail. It was constructed by the Green Mountain Club from 1910 to 1930 and runs the entire length of Vermont's mountain range. Walk the whole thing and you'll be on it for 273 miles all the way from the Massachusetts state line to the border between the United States and Canada. At about 14 miles each day, that would take about 20 days. Don't worry, there are sleeping cabins along the way if you are interested. Just make arrangements to pick up food every now and then.

If you are thinking that the Long Trail sounds just like the more famous Appalachian Trail only smaller, you'd be correct. The Long Trail was the inspiration for the Appalachian Trail. The Long Trail is the oldest long distance hiking trail in the United States. It's the original.

Look for the white marks on the trees to stay on the Long Trail's path.

Now clearly on a long weekend in Vermont, I wasn't going to get very far on the Long Trail. And with breweries, maple syrup, moose, at least two stops at Ben & Jerry's and all sorts of other things on the agenda (not to mention there's no way I'm sleeping in a hut on a trail) we didn't really have much time at all to spend on the Long Trail at all. But I did think this trail was historic enough that I at least wanted to say I'd set foot on it.

So after our first night in Burlington (and actually on the way to the Ben & Jerry's factory if you must know...) we headed out to Camel's Hump State Park where we knew we would find a trailhead that would take us directly onto the Long Trail.

I'd read before our visit how difficult this trail was to walk. I had read that it was steep and slow going and that there was no point wearing waterproof footwear because the water in spots would be so deep that it wouldn't matter. And that you WOULD get wet. Soaked even. I'd read that you would likely be walking in spots through forest so thick that in some places you would lose the trail and be completely reliant on the white markings on the trees to find your way, assuming someone actually painted the markings recently. 

We didn't get any of that, likely because we spent all of about an hour on the Trail itself. And by an hour I mean like 25 minutes in and 25 minutes out. Hey, we had other stuff going on. But I can see that walking 273 miles through the wooded mountains of Vermont would be no small task, and I don't mean to be just simply stating the obvious there. The day we were out there was thick, like hot and humid, and every step it seemed involved walking over a bunch of tree roots or some rocks or boulders or something in our way.  We could have walked a lot more than we did (just reference last year's walk to Machu Picchu if there's any doubt there) but I definitely wouldn't want to spend days out there on this trail.

Very large rock on the Long Trail. 

And then there was the whole moose foolishness thing.

Inherently, I knew our quest for moose was going to be a losing battle. I've been wildlife watching enough either here at home in the United States or elsewhere in the world to know that the best time to look for animals is in the morning or just before dark. I've also barely avoided too many times to count and actually hit (twice, if you must know) deer with my car in upstate New York on my way to or from work during the late '90s to have the concept that dawn and dusk are active times for creatures (particularly deer, of which moose are the largest) adequately drilled into my head. We didn't go moose spotting first thing in the morning or at the end of the day.

Maybe I should clarify that. We did get up early and probably left Burlington by about 6:30. But to get to our moose spots, it took about 2-1/2 hours (again...how big is this super small state?) so by the time we got there, it was not anywhere close to dawn.

I thought we had a great list: the Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge; two stretches of sometimes moose-filled highway along the way; a moose watching platform; and a 5 mile section of road (admittedly in New Hampshire) nicknamed Moose Alley. How can you not find moose on a road named Moose Alley? We managed it, although we did see a bear.

Good advice. But un-needed for us. Along Moose Alley in New Hampshire.

I'd say all told we were on the road on our moose day for about 11 plus hours. And it was all driving, except for a quick stop for lunch and of course a quick brewery visit. Most of this time was spent getting across and back the fat part of the state of Vermont. 

Most of our looking time was spent at the Conte Fish and Wildlife Refuge, a maze of dirt and gravel trails that are almost consistently really just one car wide and surprisingly steep in spots. Good thing we brought the Jeep on this trip.

We roamed around the Refuge for hours, initially heading for Lewis Pond before going further into the woods to the Lewis Pond Overlook and then backtracking and hitting the Molly Beattie Bog. We figured a pond and a bog would be great locations for moose sighting and if we didn't see any up close at the pond then an overlook would get us a great view of all the moose in the entire pond area. 

They weren't. We couldn't see any more than like four feet in front of our face at the Bog (vegetation...) and Lewis Pond isn't visible at all from Lewis Pond Overlook (ironically; lots of irony in this post). 

The Pond itself is a gorgeous, still, lake-sized body of water surrounded by mountains and trees (just like the rest of the state) and while we stood on the beach looking out over the water, we saw something white on the move which looked like a large animal with some sort of fan-like assembly popping up out of the Pond every so often. Had to be a moose and the zoom lens on the camera seemed to confirm it. At least we'd go home with one confirmed sighting.

Lewis Pond, Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge. 

My wife doubted. She kept asking why the moose was white. It was an excellent question. And albino moose was not a good answer. Ultimately when we got a chance to check out the moose on a larger screen than the tiny view on our camera, the "moose" turned out to be a loon, a large goose-like bird with distinct black and white coloring. The fan like assemblage I assumed was a set of antlers obviously was the bird spreading its wings. Darn it!

No moose in the refuge. No moose near the moose watching platform, which was really just a ramp and a hut near the side of the highway. No moose at Moose Alley. If it wasn't for the gorgeous scenery, this day would have been a complete waste. Here's hoping the next time I go looking for moose will be a lot more successful. Back to Burlington to watch the sun set over Lake Champlain and a little Vermont beer.

Lake Champlain. Sunset.

I guess Vermont turned out to be OK for a long weekend. I'd even consider going back if I were on my way somewhere else or I was just in the neighborhood. If nothing else, I'd love to load up the car with some of that good Vermont beer. And maybe a little of the right kind of maple syrup.

So does this cure my reluctance to travel to New England ever again? Probably not, but in researching our postponed and then cancelled trip to Maine I'm convinced I need to get up there next summer for a long weekend. A little puffin watching and a lot of lobster roll eating I'm thinking. And if we time it right, maybe a trip into the bogs to try to find some moose. Only this time at dawn or dusk and maybe with a moose guide. I hear Maine is way better for moose than Vermont.

If you had told me at the beginning of this year I'd spend a long weekend in Vermont and love it, I would have thought you were crazy, or something was seriously wrong with this world, which is about right. But this was a good summer break, despite the lack of very large deer we spotted. The Long Trail was a must have touchstone moment and we learned a ton about maple syrup. We also had a lot of really good food and managed three meals seated at restaurants outside. In 2020, it's the small things that matter. I'll treasure our time in Vermont, even though it's probably way down on the list of places to go back to. But it's not last. 

---

How We Did It

We visited three covered bridges just west of downtown Bennington. We drove over the Henry Covered Bridge, the Paper Mill Village Bridge and the Silk Road Covered Bridge in less than 30 minutes. There are parking areas near all three. Just beware oncoming traffic if you decide to go walking into one or more of the bridges. 

The Bennington Battle Monument is easy to find. It is possible to climb the monument. It's open every day from May through October according to their website. We just took a quick walk around and didn't opt for the guided tour. We had fish and chips on our mind after all.

Speaking of fish and chips, if you are looking for some good grub while in Bennington, I highly recommend Lil' Britain at 116 North Street. Look them up on Facebook. There was no dine in option when we went there but their food traveled the couple of miles to our hotel pretty well, including (remarkably) the chips. Get the mushy peas. And ask for some malt vinegar. 

Camel's Hump State Park is in Duxbury, Vermont, an easy 45 minute drive from Burlington. If you use Google Maps, the directions will take you to the main parking lot. The trailhead for the Long Trail is located off River Road near the Winooski River before you make the right turn into the parking lot. 

The Silvio O. Conte National Fish and Wildlife Refuge is all the way on the east side of the state in Brunswick. We spent hours here and honestly, I can see it being a great place to see wildlife, just not in the middle of the day when we were there. If you plan to make it any distance into the Refuge, make sure you allot a ton of time or drive fast (I recommend the former). Make sure you have plenty of gas and a four wheel drive or high clearance vehicle. And if you think you are going to be OK ignoring the "No Outlet" sign when you head east from Molly Beattie Bog as the quickest way out back to the highway...don't! Turn around and go back the way you came in. Trust me.

---