Vermont Road Trip

This weekend was the Columbus Day holiday here in the States so time to get out and about especially with the trees turning into their fall colours. The Vermont State website suggested some routes which were in areas of peak or near peak colour so I planned to go up the Interstate to Rutland, Vermont about 100 miles north east of Albany and then cut across the Green Mountains doing a loop on the east side coming back down to Bennington and from there home. We got to Rutland and made a detour to visit the Mountain Top Tavern and Resort, just north of the town. The resoprt is on the shores of Chittenden Reservoir. Today it was busy with plenty of people out in canoes or just lazing around the beach area. The day was beautiful, the sky was blue and the temperature soared up to 85F (almost 30C). At the beach, I was amazed to see some women sunbathing in bikinis in the middle of October ! After lunch by the lake we headed east on the Vermont route 73 only to find it closed, the damage caused by hurricane Irene had still not been repaired.

Chittenden Reservoir

Vermont is an odd state; it is a state of two halves east and west with the Green Mountains running up the middle. There are only a few roads that run east – west and with this one being closed the only options were to drive 70 miles north or go down to Bennington and come back up, both these options would mean an additional 150 or so miles and several hours of travel so I decided to head north on the 53, following the shore of Lake Dunmore to pick up Route 7 and then head back down to Bennington.

Along Vermont Route 7

At Manchester we took the more scenic Historic Route 7, the predecessor of the modern highway Route 7. As I approached Bennington, I decided to take a back road back to New York and follow the Battenkill River to Hoosick and then pick up NY Route 7 back to Albany. The route numbers here confuse many, Vermont Rt7 continues in to Massachusetts changing to Mass Rt7 eventually ending up at Lee, while the NY Rt7 heads off the Vermont Rt7 at Bennington and back to Albany. It’s common to see cars pulled over with drivers pouring over maps trying to decide which route 7 they actually need.

The Battenkill River

The trees were good but not quite yet at peak in the southern half of Vermont, the turning comes south over the next couple of weeks so still a chance to get up in to the Adirondacks and Catskill Mountains to capture the brilliance of the Maples as they change to their fall coat of reds and oranges.