Burlington & Stowe Area, VT

We decided to “camp” a little differently during our visit to the Green Mountain State and booked a month-long reservation at an RV park. We had imagined a busy summer camping season and difficulty finding sites on the weekends. Also, camping seems to be more expensive in the northeast. A monthly discount would bring our camping costs down to around $30 per night instead of $50+.

Maple Grove Campground was about 20 minutes north of Burlington and 45 minutes from Stowe. The campground was small with about 30 tight spaces but luckily we had trees on two sides and we enjoyed our stay from mid-Aug to mid- Sept.

One of the first things we noticed about Vermont is that there are no eyesores. It is mile after mile of quaint towns, rolling farmland, covered bridges, and of course those beautiful Green Mountains. Just driving from point to point is so enjoyable and picturesque. In addition to no traffic (there must be more dairy cows than people in Vermont), Michael realized there are no billboards along the roads.

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Burlington is Vermont’s most populous city with only 40K residents.

Burlington sits on Lake Champlain, one of the prettiest lakes we have ever seen with the Adirondacks on one side and the Green Mountains on the other. There are several parks along the lake that are connected by a path that we biked. The northern end of the trail extends into the lake towards the Lake Champlain Islands.

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Just south of Burlington, a short 2-mile hike at Mount Philo State Park leads to a nice view of Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks.

We walked around Montpelier which is the smallest state capital in the US.

We visited a nearby sugarhouse where we learned a bit about the process of boiling sugar maple sap into maple syrup. The sap is collected in early spring when temperatures rise just above freezing during the day. There are usually 3 collections that correspond to the different grades of maple syrup. Light syrup comes from the first run, amber from the second, and dark from the third. They are all processed identically and have the same sugar content of 66.7%.

We really loved the town of Stowe and went several times. Stowe is primarily known for skiing. While we are not skiers, we do enjoy a nice ski town during the hiking season.

The drive from our campground to Stowe took us through Smugglers’ Notch, a mountain pass adjacent to Mount Mansfield which is Vermont’s highest peak at 4393′.

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As usual, we spent most of our free time hiking. On a couple of occasions, we hiked in the morning and paddled in the afternoon.

We are learning that the northeast does not believe in switchbacks. Most trails go straight up and seem organically created from an ancient rock slide or mountain runoff. They typically end with a rock scramble up to the summit. And in this area of Vermont, they frequently join up with the Long Trail which is the oldest multi-day trail in the country running along the main ridge of the Green Mountains from the Massachusetts state line to Canada.

Smugglers’ Notch and Stowe Area Hiking/Paddling:

We also hiked to Mount Mansfield, which was named for a person but also has a profile that resembles a man’s face. The trails from the Smugglers’ Notch side of Mount Mansfield have some technical features we wanted to avoid. We decided to approach it from the west, at Underhill State Park. We made a 6-mile loop by ascending Halfway House – across the Long Trail ridgeline – and descending Sunset Ridge.

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We also paddled the Waterbury Reservoir twice. Once from the north and once from the east at Waterbury Center State Park. The north was nice because it has a large no-wake zone. The entrance at the state park has mountain views and while the cloudy day meant our pictures weren’t great, it also meant we didn’t have to fight boat traffic.

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With so many weekend days we started venturing outside the Stowe area for hiking/paddling.

We hiked to Camel’s Hump (Vermont’s 4th highest peak) via the Forest City – the Long Trail – Burrows loop.

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Another day we combined a Mount Abraham hike via the Long Traill in the morning with Blueberry Lake in the afternoon.

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We also paddled at a couple of state parks east of us. We were initially disappointed at how developed Lake Elmore was. But there were 4 loons and we watched the mature ones fishing and feeding the immature ones.

The Green River Reservoir State Park paddle was the best we did while in Vermont. It was quiet and peaceful as there were no motorboats and no development around the reservoir. We saw loons as well as bald eagles.

Vermont offers several good ways to replenish blood sugar levels after hiking/paddling. Some we knew about beforehand like the original Ben & Jerry’s in Waterbury. Then, there was the maple creemee. A creemee is Vermont’s version of soft-serve but with higher butterfat content. We sampled the maple creemee at 4 different establishments, becoming somewhat experts in them. The picture below is from Morse Sugarworks near Montpelier.

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All trips to this area of Vermont need to include a stop at Cold Hollow Cider Mill.

And, last, the beer. Or rather IPAs. If I have one gripe about Vermont it’s the lack of diversity in its beer offerings. We sampled many Vermont IPAs from the grocery store but made an exception for The Alchemist in Stowe. The Alchemist created the first New England IPA, Heady Topper. Apparently, people from all over travel to Stowe to acquire carloads of beer from The Alchemist (we saw this happening).

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While we got along very well with Vermont, after a month in one spot we were ready to move on! After all, our house does have wheels and they are taking us to New Hampshire.