Summer 2010
Getaways
The Rush of Summer
Six wondrous waterfalls for great family hikes
By Catherine Buni
Finding falling water in Vermont is not hard. Drive along any of our winding, stream-hugging roads, and you’ll spot a waterfall, some bold and beckoning, others alluringly tucked away. I should pull over sometime, you say to yourself, hike in a few steps, take off my shoes and cool my toes.
Yes, you should. But with options overflowing, how to choose? We called the pros to narrow the field. People like Ben Rose, executive director of the Green Mountain Club; Sharon Torres of the Green Mountain National Forest staff; and Greg Parsons and Kate Watson, authors of the guidebook “New England Waterfalls.”
The only criterion was that we’d actually have to walk awhile. We had to earn the prize, as the saying goes. That narrowed it down. Considerably. “Unfortunately,” says fall guy Greg Parsons, “there just aren’t many waterfalls in Vermont that require hiking.”
No matter your destination, keep in mind that Vermont’s waterfalls are at their ripest in spring, before the end of June, when things normally start to dry out. Sometimes, though, normal just doesn’t apply. The day my family visited Jamaica Falls, in early September, the water was still high and frothy.
So we stuck to the shallows, where the water ran clear and emerald green. I was glad we’d heeded Parsons and Watson’s good advice before heading out: “Always carry a bathing suit and a towel; you will need them.”
Lye Brook Falls, Manchester
Distance: 4.6 miles round trip
Difficulty: Moderate
“One-and-a-half hours. Worth the walk,” read a scrap of birch bark stuck into the registration box at the trailhead of Lye Brook Falls the day we headed out. According to our experts, Lye Brook is the longest waterfall hike in the state.
As promised, the trail started flat, with three small brook crossings the color of butter. Here and there, the path hourglassed, narrowing into tunnels of sweet spruce, ferns and moss. We could hear the delicate drip, drip from rocky overhangs, which opened to light and airy woods. Just past a granddaddy maple wider than stretched arms, I passed a man carrying a tripod and camera and a big grin on his face.
Around the bend on a steep, beech-shaded hill, a low roar and cool air rushed in. Around the next corner, the roar picked up volume. The trail stopped abruptly, then dove straight down a washed-out hillside. Below, amid a jumble of massive tree trunks, a boy yelled to his dad. “Look!” pointing to the stick he’d just tossed into the rushing water, “See how fast it goes!” He picked up another stick, threw it in and watched it cartwheel away.
Above, the falls sang. We snaked upward on a trail that clung to the side of the cliff, our eyes on the falls, a classic horsetail, all wispy and wild, 100 feet high. It’s not a swimmer or a wader, this one, but a humbler. Standing under it, you feel small, in a good way. You’re happy to pull up a rock, sit back with your lunch and leave the exclamations of awe and beauty for another day. The roar of the water drowns out anything you’d say anyway.
Back at the trailhead, two hikers from Proctor take a stab at it all the same. “WOW,” was all they wrote.
Falls of Lana, Salisbury
Distance: 0.4 miles to falls, many more miles available on connecting trails
Difficulty: Easy to dicey
“If directors in Hollywood were briefed on this spot, Falls of Lana could become a star,” swoon Parsons and Watson. Just a jump across the road from Lake Dunmore and Branbury State Park, Falls of Lana plays well for all ages.
It must be said that the opening scene lacks drama, with a major close-up of a black water pipe the width of a silo. You walk for a while in its shadow, pass beneath it and there the action picks up. Find the easiest path and drop left to the lower falls, where you’ll find horsetails and cascades feeding through a 50-foot gorge. From there, climb to the upper falls (“the star of the show,” rave Parsons and Watson). Rock climbers, swimmers and hikers hang here, soaking alternately in full sun and bracing mountain water.
By all means, take time to continue onward and upward, following the gentle, wooded Rattlesnake Trail to Rattlesnake Cliff and the summit of Moosalamoo Mountain, an easy four-mile round trip. While walking the trail one bright, sunny day, the brook babbled, pileated woodpeckers pecked, chipmunks chipped, and the ferns, bunchberries, beech and spruce were glowing and sweet. Moosalamoo is Abenaki for moose call, so keep an ear out.
Sitting on Rattlesnake Cliff, above circling ravens, a prop plane and a glowing Lake Dunmore, I watched for peregrine falcons, who are known to nest here.
You could stay all day, if it weren’t for the promise of a second visit to the falls down below.
On the way out, I detoured through the Branbury State Park Campground, which shoulders up to Sucker Brook and the falls on one side. Site 21, I took note, has the best view.
Weathersfield Trail to Cascade Falls, Mount Ascutney, Windsor
Distance: 6 miles
Difficulty: Moderate
This is a terrific family hike, with a rocky canyon to explore, plenty of polished stone outcrops for sunning and picnicking, shed-size, climbable glacial erratics, geological oddities, and at the top, a hang-gliding launch pad.
We were lucky to snag a hot, hazy day for our climb, and lolled around Cascade Falls, swishing our bare feet in the babbling, copper-colored brook, well after our snacks were gone. And why not? By that time, we were more than a mile into the hike, just enough to feel like we’d earned a break, but not so far that we’d reached the how-much-farther-till-we-get-to-the-top zone. Parents of wee ones will appreciate the smooth stone and friendly grade. At the top, a knee-high rock ridge rises up as a natural barrier to the 84-foot drop.
Geology buffs take note: Cascade Falls provides clues to a rare geological formation called a ring dike, a ragged circle around the mountain made by oozing lava. (You’ll need to visit Norway to see the other known “large example” of what’s known there as a nordmarkite.) Look for the gray mass at the base of the falls, or flat outcrops above the cliff, fragments of rock that escaped the magma’s heat, as evidence. Mount Ascutney, formed at the same time as New Hampshire’s White Mountains, about 120 million years ago, grew out of the same upwardly mobile molten rock and is the only mountain in Vermont geologically linked to the Whites.
The trail winds through piney groves and past a massive boulder that begs to be climbed (and is), then along more sun-warmed rock ledges offering Sabra Field views.
Adults may be disappointed with the summit, with its fire tower and forest of radio towers. Kids, on the other hand, love it. Detour to the west peak on the way down to see the wooden hang- gliding launch ramp to the sky.
Bingham Falls, Stowe
Distance: 0.6 miles, with option of additional hiking on connected trails
Difficulty: Easy if you stay on the trail, potentially hazardous otherwise
“A secluded geological wonder,” gushes “New England Waterfalls,” with hair-raising cliffs and a memorial plaque to prove it. Fragrant and leafy, the trail starts just out of Stowe, with dappled sun and robins chirping above a baseline of rushing water that builds with what can only be called anticipation. Bingham Falls, it is widely known, is home to one of the deepest, greenest and coolest swimming holes in the state.
If your kids are the run-ahead, gravity- and momentum-gathering type, merrily tripping on roots and skidding in mud, this probably isn’t the hike for them. The earth ends abruptly a couple stories above roiling water and a deep, 150-foot gorge, so stay right and stick to the trail, whose one steep section offers up a stone staircase that switchbacks politely to the base.
The day we visited, sunny and cool, our kids had just started exploring the small sandy beaches and ankle-deep pools at the bottom of the falls, when they happened upon a sunbather sans swimwear who clearly hadn’t heeded Parsons’ advice to “always carry a bathing suit.” No matter. Together, we clambered to the upper pool, where 7-year-old Frances and I dared each other into a lightning-fast, breathtaking plunge. To avoid the strong current, we stuck to the pool’s left. A handy rock ledge gave us a step out. Back at the top, we explored the river, shin-deep and shimmering. We discovered a gentle river crossing, which led to another trail on the far side. As we inched toward the edge there, just as high, we joined hands, our hearts racing.
If you have the time, check out neighboring Moss Glen Falls, a quick 15-minute drive back through Stowe village. Follow the short (0.2 miles), brushy trail to the falls, a glittering marvel 100-feet high, with a clear pool calm enough for a fellow hiker’s 2-year-old, who sat smack in the middle, hamming it up for dad’s camera.
Abbey Pond Trail, Middlebury
Distance: 4.6 miles round trip
Difficulty: Easy
Abbey Pond is a sleeper of a trail, its first underwhelming steps barely skirting a quarry growling with dump trucks. But the path is lined with yellow jewelweed and flowering purple raspberry and before you know it, just around the first bend, you come to a wooden footbridge and two pretty waterfalls. Once there, the kids in our party, five in all, raced to strip off shoes and socks. A couple of them crept cautiously but steadily into a mini-canyon leading to the upper falls. Others scrambled to the lower falls, grabbing roots and rocks for balance.
After less than a half-mile, with more than four to go, I worried the kids would have little motivation to keep hiking, but I needn’t have. In the end, fungus and amphibians stole the show. The kids had fun keeping count, of colors and shapes, sizes and species. Pink, yellow, brown, orange. Cone, funnel, cap, coral. Red eft, toad, tree frog, green frog. With no roads here to block amphibian migration from wetlands and uplands, the little critters are clearly thriving. (Not surprisingly, so are the mosquitoes. Pack insect repellent or be prepared to suffer the fate of one wild-eyed woman who, halfway into the hike, raced toward us, covered in red welts, begging for bug spray.)
While the kids had their eyes on the ground, the adults looked to the trees. The woods here are designated an “environmental special area” by the Green Mountain National Forest and are home to hemlock and some of this forest’s only oaks.
We reached Abbey Pond in time for lunch. The kids crouched at water’s edge counting salamanders while the swallows swooped overhead. We considered the industriousness of beavers and watched for herons. We didn’t find any Eastern Jacob’s ladder, a rare plant that’s been found here for more than 100 years, but it’s there, and plenty else. When it started to drizzle, the kids headed back down the trail, squelching happily in the mud, eyes peeled for more bright spots of color.
Pikes Falls, Jamaica
Distance: 0.2 miles
Difficulty: Easy
Pikes Falls is just off the road, but what a road: eight windy miles lined with tidy cabins and farmhouses, and driveways parked with cars from New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut. OK, so Pikes Falls doesn’t qualify as a hike. But if you’re 3 or 5 or even 10, it’s a perfect place to explore, with one of the most generous, welcoming swimming holes in the state: 40 feet wide, 25 feet long, up to 10 feet deep. Older kids whip down the 10-foot rock slide, while little ones wade in the shallows off to the side or downstream. Of course there are the typical slip-and-fall hazards, but you’ll find no three-story drops or memorial plaques here.
Ten-year-old Ben immediately went to work on log removal. Frances plunged in off the far wall. A black lab fetched tennis balls. Perfect. Well, almost. “I wish I’d brought my goggles,” Ben said.
If you have time, check out Hamilton Falls, back down the road near Jamaica State Park. Some 125 feet high, it is one of Vermont’s highest waterfalls. It’s just a looker, though, with currents much too strong for swimming.
For your information
- For detailed directions to trailheads and trail conditions, consult “New England Waterfalls: A Guide to More Than 400 Cascades and Waterfalls,” by Greg Parsons and Kate B. Watson, The Countryman Press, $18.95, www.NewEnglandWaterfalls.com
- The Green Mountain Club has numerous publications, including “Green Mountain Club Day Hikers Guide to Vermont,” $18.95, and “50 Hikes in Vermont: Walks, Hikes, and Overnights in the Green Mountain State,” $16.95, www.greenmountainclub.org
- “Nature Walks in Southern Vermont,” by Mark Mikolas, AMC Books, $12.95, www.outdoors.org
- www.northeastwaterfalls.com
- www.swimmingholes.org
