Green Mountain Getaway in Vermont - Motorcycle Mojo Magazine

Mountain roads and historical highlights await the two-wheeled traveller

Home to 541 proud Vermonters, Weston is a pastoral village nestled in Vermont’s Green Mountain National Park. Picturesque stone fences divide emerald-green pastures that fade upward into tree-covered mountains as the West River threads its way through the valley alongside Route 100. It’s all reminiscent of a picture postcard – a pristine village where time has stood still.

As with many New England towns, names were derived from the motherland, each with a central park from which the villages radiate outward. Across from the park, the six-pillared Weston Playhouse Theatre gleams in the summer’s sun. A few steps up the street is the Vermont Country Store. A walk along the store’s squeaky wooden floors, down its narrow aisles stocked with miscellanies from apple peelers to old wooden clothes pegs, is a walk through American culinary history.

Tina and I wing quietly through town, then upward through a bower of trees. We savour the aroma of pine pitch from the tall white pines, and soon break free from the forest covering the hillside to find an uncut field of green clover; on the other side of the field is our destination. Claimed by New York and then New Hampshire, Vermont eventually became a state in 1790, coincidently, just one year prior to the construction of the red clapboard Colonial House Inn, our home for the next few days. It’s a place where you immediately feel like you’re home.

Jeff and Kim Seymour are the third family to own the inn, and as they greet us at the front door, I see that Jeff is a fellow enthusiast. His two-wheeled therapy, a BMW R1150, sits by the front stoop at the ready. What better place to stay than at a fellow motorcyclist’s inn?

Silence. Just Eat Your Breakfast

Morning arrives, and with it the tantalizing aroma of Jeff’s tasty breakfast creations. Interestingly, we share our table with older ladies and I share a bit of our itinerary with them. As I tell them about a certain monastery we’ll be visiting and the oath of silence taken by the monks, I make light of how I could possibly get one of them to talk. Unknowingly, these ladies are retired nuns who are spending a week at the Weston Priory just up the road. Thankfully, they have a sense of humour, and apprehension gives way to conversation and there is never a pause throughout our breakfasts each morning of our stay.

Leaving the inn, there’s hardly a car in sight as we freewheel along the curvy road heading south through the forest-filled valleys following the river to Londonderry. After a right onto Vermont 11, we soon sweep past Peru (pronounced “pru” by the locals), and later, the expansive Bromley valley opens before us. We coast downward and cruise by the ski village, with its water slides and summer entertainment facilities, then climb upward again to another awesome view of ski slopes etched into a far-off mountain’s forested flanks. The roadside is dotted with inns and restaurants to assuage the ravenous appetites of winter skiers and summer hikers. Thousands of kilometres of hiking trails in Vermont overlap and interlace these mountains, including the renowned 3,500 km Appalachian Trail.

At the intersection of Route 30 and VT 7A sits picturesque Manchester. Pristine white-shuttered clapboard homes with Victorian-era gingerbread embellishments, along with white-pillared mansions, line the streets. It’s apparent there were a few affluent citizens here when the town was founded in 1761.

Famous Sons

Jake Burton, one of the inventors of the snowboard, called Manchester his home, but its most famous citizen was Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham’s only surviving son. Robert made a fortune as a lawyer, politician and, later, as president of the Pullman Car Company – and he fell in love with Manchester. In 1902, he purchased 500 acres of land and built his mansion, known as Hildene. After his death in 1926, his daughter Jessie, Abraham Lincoln’s last undisputed descendant, used Hildene as her summer home. She died in 1948, and the home fell into disrepair until 1978, when the community formed a non-profit organization called the Friends of Hildene. They’ve since restored the property to its original grandeur and opened it to the public.

Winding south again to another bend in the road, the toll house for the Mount Equinox Road beckons us, and we begin terracing up the snake-like ascent to its 1,172-metre summit. The reward is a breathtaking panorama of Vermont’s Green Mountains, New Hampshire’s White Mountains, the Adirondacks of New York, the Berkshires of Massachusetts and, on a clear day, Montreal’s Mount Royal. Private construction on the toll road began in 1941 and was completed in 1947. At 8.3 km, it is the longest privately owned, paved toll road in America. On our descent, the white stone of the Carthusian Monastery gleams amid the surrounding greenery below. The Carthusian Order originated in 10th-century Europe. Talking is prohibited, which fits perfectly with its tranquil setting.

Vermont is a plethora of American history, and while rambling past immaculate farms and through charming villages, thoughts of the Revolution and Ethan Allen leading his Green Mountain Boys roll through my head. Kill is an Old Dutch name for “creek,” and at Arlington, we turn right and parallel Battenkill River along VT 313. We cross over the river through a red covered bridge, pass by a little white church and arrive at the Inn on Covered Bridge Green. It’s here that Norman Rockwell called home during his most productive years and painted most of his many, memorable works. Inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous Four Freedoms speech on the eve of the Second World War, Rockwell created his Four Freedoms on canvas, depicted by simple family scenes. His artistic illustrations graced more than 40 books, including The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as well as an unprecedented 322 covers for the Saturday Evening Post. Behind the inn, Rockwell’s historic studio has been converted into a cottage accommodation.
Frost

With the Wing humming along in the shade of the overhanging boughs, I crane left and right hunting for a certain stone house, and suddenly there it is. We ride up the gravel driveway, past a lovely one-and-a-half-storey stone house: the 1920s home of the legendary American poet Robert Frost. Through the orchard I spot a single surviving birch tree beside the barn, the last of several birches planted by the poet’s hands. Frost remains one of America’s most celebrated poets, and it was in these inspirational surroundings that he wrote many of his most famous compositions. As we meander back to our home base, VT 313 takes us to US 7 and then north on VT 30, following the Winhall River. Near Bondville, local citizen Grant Bercik began using the rocks in the Winhall River to create sculptures. It was his personal therapy after his dog died, and he went on to create hundreds of sculptures. Unfortunately, a local oddball decided to destroy them with a garden rake. Only a few remain today. Vermont 30 takes us to the hamlet of Jamaica and then Windham Hill Road. This narrow winding bit of paved trail passes through Vermont backcountry, dotted here and there with subsistent farms. At Burbee Pond Road, we turn left onto a gravel road and wiggle our way to Hamilton Falls Road. A precipitous pathway, more for goats than humans, leads me walking downward into a valley and the base of Hamilton Falls, Vermont’s most beautiful waterfall. Here, Cobb Brook slices its way 38 metres sideways and downward through layers of granite schist. At the top of the falls, a swimming hole with steep ledges is a huge temptation for young boys, but tragically, it has cost 12 lives so far over the past 30 years.

Deep in thought I slowly slog back up the trail to my waiting wife, who thinks I’m nuts. Ravenous, we backtrack to Peru and the J.J. Hapgood General Store & Eatery. Established in 1827, it’s the longest continuously running general store in Vermont and a wonderful off-the-beaten-path restaurant. We dine on a hamburger, and French fries cooked in duck fat – a tasty, satisfying finish to a great day.

Morning Sugar Fix

The next morning, well sated from another of Jeff’s creations, we climb over Chester Mountain to Andover. More of Vermont’s wonderful early-morning scenery takes us to Baba À Louis Bakery in Chester. With its heavy beamed arches, it looks more like a church than a bakery, but the cinnamon buns are incredible and a huge variety of other calorie-enhanced sweets start the day right. At Grafton, memories flood my mind of 1970, when I raced here in what was to be the last Canada vs. U.S.A. Challenge Match of motocross. It’s a beautiful, peaceful little town – its church steeple piercing the deep blue sky. The lovely Victorian Grafton Inn graces the main street, while other streets tumble off into forested lanes beckoning to be explored. But we wind on southward to meet our friend Tony Fletcher, who has travelled down from Montreal to spend a day riding with us. We make one more stop along the way at West Dummerston Covered Bridge. Covered bridges always intrigue me and I cannot resist stopping to inspect. They are unique and part of our heritage that, unfortunately, is rapidly disappearing.

Spanning the West River, this is the longest covered bridge in Vermont. It was built in 1872, and at 85 metres long, it’s diminutive compared with the New Brunswick Hartland covered bridge, at 390 metres, but is still a masterpiece of wooden architecture. It’s a hot day and traffic is busy as we stop-and-go through Brattleboro, and eventually pause for an early lunch at the Whetstone Station Restaurant and Brewery overlooking the Connecticut River. Being on the state line, you can enjoy a glass of brew while standing in Vermont and New Hampshire at the same time. Tony is waiting for us, and after a fine lunch on the patio high above the river, we mount up and head south. Long-Ago Competition In 1973, the United States hosted the 48th International Six Days Trial (ISDT), where competitors endured a most torturous motorcycle endurance event.

Thirteen hundred miles of trails through not only the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts, but also New York and Vermont, where I tested my mettle and the metal of my machine – for all six days. And today I must find this place that I have not seen since then. We follow the signs to Greenfield and come upon a serendipitous detour that takes us along a fantastic route I will never remember through the Berkshire Mountains. Finally back on MA 2, we stop for gas just outside Dalton and I realize that my memory fails me. It was 43 years ago when I competed in this ISDT and all I saw in those six days was forest and mountains, rocks and mud holes. Sadly, we head north again and back into Vermont on VT 7 where we take Tony to our now favourite restaurant in Peru, and we feast on duck-fat fries once again while talking about the day’s wanderings. Like all trips, this one is too short with too much to see, so next year I will be back again, touring the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts to find some of those elusive trails and sights of many years ago.

Deadly Friendships

During the Civil War, Robert Todd Lincoln was travelling home by train from Harvard. While standing on the crowded platform in Jersey City with his back pressed against the train, he fell between the train and the platform. Miraculously, a hand reached down and plucked him to safety. Ironically, that hand belonged to a famous actor, Edwin Booth, the brother of infamous John Wilkes Booth, who would later assassinate Lincoln’s father. In 1881, Lincoln was Secretary of War for President James Garfield.

While waiting on a train platform with Garfield, the president was shot by one Charles Guiteau and later died from complications. The pattern continued in 1901 as Lincoln was invited by then president McKinley to travel to Buffalo to attend the Pan-American Exposition. McKinley was shot and killed by Leon Czolgosz while Lincoln was en route to visit the president. After this, Lincoln refused to attend any presidential functions, stating, “There is a certain fatality about the presidential function when I am present.”

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