August 26, 2023 to August 27, 2023
Day 71 and 72: White Mountains back to Green
Gorham, NH to Huntington, VT
We have had the most excellent riding over the past two days. First off, we did not have much rain leaving Gorham, NH - remember the hammering from the day before… We’ll, we did get a little sprinkle while riding the Lemoille Valley Rail Trail(a 93 mile trail connecting lots of small VT towns), but that wasn’t too bad. Leading up to the trail, we had plenty of scenic back roads with little traffic - plus, some good country Vermont dirt roads. Vermont has good dirt roads; they are hard packed with gravel. We happened to be on some of the Green Mountain Gravel Growler Bike Route while we were riding through Hardwick and camped at Woodbury Meadows CG that was right on the route. The camp was our first Hipcamp experience, and it was an extremely pleasant one. Jon and Ann, the camp hosts, have created an oasis for all campers but especially bike tourists. Site 2 had an EZ Up, picnic table, solar for charging devices, lighting, a camp fire ring with chairs, and a really clean bathhouse. We were so happy that there was a shower as we had had a steamy 93 mile day on Saturday.
We left Woodbury Meadows around 8:00 am as we had a long day with a bit of climbing to get to Huntington to visit Mike’s sister and brother-in-law. First we had to backtrack seven miles to Hardwick, then we picked up busy Route 15 East; luckily, it was Sunday morning traffic. The shoulder was mostly nonexistent or really rough. We rode this route until Jeffersonville where we then connected to Route 108 heading towards Smugglers’ Notch. This was a beautiful ride; I am really glad we did it. However, I would not ride it during Leaf Peeping Season; there would be too much traffic and no shoulder. Once we reached the top of The Notch, we descended into Stowe and then made our way to the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Waterbury Center. I enjoyed our ride from Waterbury over to Huntington; again, we had some pleasant dirt roads. I would love to come back and do a gravel tour, but touring in really rainy weather does not sound appealing at the moment.
We finally made our way to Jim and Kathy’s for a nice evening of food, conversation, and visiting. Today is dry everything out, laundry, and get ready for the last day of riding to Mike’s dad’s house day. This tour is shortly coming to an end. Back to reality soon; we’ll see how that goes…
Team Bean
Today's ride: 187 miles (301 km)
Total: 4,619 miles (7,434 km)
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