Vermont Autumn

Issue #091 - Southern Vermont

On your first day in Vermont, start with an overview of the Northeast Kingdom by traveling a ridge road loop from Lyndonville. Starting at the junction of Highway 5 and Highway 114, drive east on #114 just past the second bridge. Turn left on Darling Hill Road. About a mile and a half up the ridge is where the maples start. Lining both sides of the dirt road, the branches form a grand canopy of color. Try a 20mm wide-angle lens from the middle of the road.

Another mile-and-a-half north and you will pass the impressive old Darling family mansion on the right, and just beyond is the Darion Inn at Mountain View Farm (1883). After a stop to locate exactly where you are on the map, continue north through another long row of maples covering the road. Through an old fence, the maples frame the distant rolling hills, looking east to the high peak of Mt. Burke. Bear left at the first fork in the road, right at the second, then turn right over a small bridge into the village of Burke Hollow. This is only one of several hundred small villages in Vermont, but is worth a search for a good view of their white-steepled church.

Continue your journey north through the crossroads in the village center and up the hill to the left at the fork in the road. Soon you’ll come to a large grove of maples surrounding an old sugar shack where the sap drawn from the maples is boiled down to syrup each spring. Go left down a steep hill to the village of West Burke. Stop to photograph some of the old shops and buildings in the village and explore the west branch of the Passumsic River.

Continue on to Sutton, a small village about four miles west. There are several routes possible, but my favorite starts about one block north of Aldrich’s General Store where a side road heads west, just beyond an old green house. There’s a beautiful grove of bright yellow American beech along this road. In the village of Sutton, all of the rural lanes are lined with colorful trees. Check your map for the dirt road that winds to the southwest and crosses Calendar Brook. Stop for a beautiful view of the stream and then continue beneath another canopy of red maples.

​By now, you should have a pretty good feel for driving the back roads of Vermont. Some are paved and some are not. All lead to beautiful surprises in the autumn. Over a rise and around the next bend, you should see a hillside covered with blazing red foliage or a distant church steeple in a deep valley. As a photographer you will surely appreciate the complete absence of billboards on all the roads of Vermont, at least there were none in 2008.