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Headwaters of the White and Mad Rivers

11/10/2019

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Back onto the quest! With winter setting in, I wanted to knock off some of the mountainous towns along the spine of the Green Mountains. Driving up the VT-100 corridor was the perfect way to accomplish this and to make good headway northward; my route took me from Rochester north along the Mad River Valley to Morrisville. Along the way, I stopped to photograph some of the more notable waterfalls in Vermont.

In GRANVILLE, I hiked up National Forest Route 55 into the White River Headwaters Recreational Area. Two inches of early winter snow covered the ground. There were not many birds along this route, but I could see that a very large moose had been walking along the middle of the same road within the last day or two; it's hoof prints were as large as my hand with outstretched fingers.
On my way north from Granville, I stopped to check out Moss Glen Falls, which surprisingly, was right along the side of the highway. The State of Vermont has built a nice walkway to the base of the falls, as well as a paved parking area and informational plaque.

WARREN holds the headwaters of the Mad River, and one of the first sights one sees upon cresting the knoll is a pull-off for Warren Falls. Here the Mad slices through a narrow passage through vertical-bedded rock, in a series of 4 steps. There must be a thunderous roar through this gap when the water is high, but otherwise it looks like a beautiful - if not slightly challenging, swimming hole. Warren is the location of Lincoln Gap Road, which rises steeply over the spine of the Green Mountains. The upper 2 miles of the road are closed in winter, but it is possible to hike from the gate up to the Gap. Turns out, the closed road is also a phenomenal sledding trail, and the recent snow put just enough cover on the paved road to make for a slick sledding route. For a kilometer, the roadway was covered with the 3-groove tracks of plastic snow sleds. Folks must've really had a great time that day; too bad nobody was sledding when I was hiking up the road.

FAYSTON is the home of Sugarbush ski resort, and I was fearful I wouldn't find a good place to hike and bird. Fortunately, I stumbled upon the Chase Brook Town Forest, which suited my needs perfectly. The Catamount Cross-Country Ski Trail passes through the town forest, making for a nice easy route for me to hike. I needed an easy route because I needed to get back to my car fairly soon, as storm clouds were crossing over the mountain ridge, and snow was starting to fly. But my hike was successful and most enjoyable.

The Catamount Cross-Country Ski Trail runs the entire length of the state of Vermont, and roughly parallels the Long Trail. It's only open in the winter, and is intended for skiers only; no snowmachines, no summer hiking.

Photos will be added below the Checklists

GRANVILLE #217 Checklist:
Blue Jay
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Black-capped Chickadee
Slate-colored Junco

WARREN #218 Checklist:
Black-capped Chickadee
Blue Jay
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Common Raven
White-breasted Nuthatch

FAYSTON #219 Checklist:
Blue Jay
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch
American Goldfinch

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The Long Absence

11/9/2019

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I cannot believe that it's been 4 years since my last posting to this blog.

My quest is 80 percent accomplished, and I have a renewed urge to complete the quest -- before eventually moving out of this state. But before I could resume my exploration of Vermont's towns, I needed to reconcile which towns I have actually surveyed, and which I have not.

Today I took on that reconciling. What a mess I had on my hands. Some surveys in eBird, others still on my phone; numbers on this website not matching those in my Delorme field atlas. But my Delorme is the foundation of my surveys; it is always updated when I survey a new town. So, I went thru all 55 map pages and reconciled the Town Number and Survey Date in a spreadsheet. I thought I had surveyed 215 towns, but in fact I had missed a 216th that I'd surveyed in 2017. Sorry about that Newbury!

So, three dozen towns to go. Fortunately, most of them are in clusters around the northern and central areas of the state. I was surprised to see that I regularly drive thru two of them - Richmond and Williston - on my way up to Burlington; I've just never gotten off the Interstate and explored them.

Here we go!

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I've been a life-long 'naturalist' -- interested in every aspect of the natural world. I began birding in the early 1990s, and have been a serious birder for over two decades.

Headwaters of the White and Mad Rivers

The Long Absence

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