Vermont

2020 October 12

by Greg & Lyn

From the Adirondacks, we decided to head further East. Originally, our plan was to head for Maine. But Maine had some pretty severe COVID restrictions, so we decided on Vermont instead. Vermont is an interesting state: almost entirely rural with a couple of small population clusters. But, like the Adirondacks, full of friendly locals and beautiful spots.

We camped for a couple of weeks on the shores of Lake Champlain at Button Bay. Great kayaking, both on the lake and a small river that leads to the lake. Unfortunately, we didn’t discover the river until it was almost time to move on.

Our Button Bay campsite, kayak at the ready!

We took a day and drove up through Smugglers notch and the ski resort areas. No way would we want to take the camper through there, but it was a pretty drive.

An Army Corp of Engineers campground at Winhall Brook. Definitely one-way traffic on the bridge!

We spent a lot of our time hiking along the various trails. A great way to get our daily steps in!

A local grocery store in South Londonderry, VT.

We spent a week at Winhall Brook so had time for some local driving excursions. There are quite a few dams in the area that the Army manages. Just how the Army came to be in charge of dams and waterways remains a mystery! But the ACE campgrounds are really nice!

A very windy day on the bridge across the dam!!

Hapgood Pond state park. Just a short stop in between other campgrounds, but a nice stop!

The hike around Hapgood Pond.

Nice bridge on the hiking path across the top of a dam. This was pretty typical of the Vermont campgrounds. Very nicely done and inviting. No wonder the parks were all pretty full.

Seems like the entire northeast is filled with small churches just crying out for people to come back from the virus.

After Hapgood, we moved to Emerald Lake. The name comes from the color of the water. In between kayaking and hiking excursions, we spend a lot of time reading, relaxing and walking around the campsite meeting other campers.

Hiking around Emerald Lake. We took more pictures hiking than kayaking because we didn’t always carry the camera in the kayak – just in case!

We came across a budding fisherman who was having a few tangle issues. Nice kid. Hope he caught a bunch!

Emerald Lake even had a small kayak/canoe canal that led from the parking area out to the lake. Too shallow for anything but paddled craft to navigate! We scraped a couple times working our way through.

After Vermont, we started to work our way back south and west. First stop was Shodack Island on the Hudson River. It was a bit of surprise since we had never heard of it before. But it was a really nice campground. And we got to add the Hudson River to our list of bodies of water we’ve been on.