Mad River and Granville Gulf

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Middlesex

2. 2. Waitsfield

   Waitsfield sits in the Mad River Valley, a long, narrow slot between two ranges of the Green Mountains, and everything about the place is shaped by the ridges. To the west the Lincoln Range rises with Mount Abraham among its peaks, to the east the Northfield range, and between them the Mad River runs north through a patchwork of farms, hayfields and white-steepled villages. Two ski areas, Sugarbush and Mad River Glen, share the valley, and the second is a cult favorite: it is a cooperative that still runs a single chairlift and insists, with its famous slogan, that you ski it if you can.

   Read the complete Waitsfield write-up.

3. 3. Warren

4. 4. Granville Gulf

   The Granville Gulf is the narrowest, steepest and most dramatic stretch of Vermont's Route 100, and it feels like a mountain pass without ever quite becoming one. The road threads a deep, wooded cleft between the high ridges of the Green Mountains, with rock walls rising on both sides and a small stream, the Mad River's upper branch, running along the bottom. The state set the whole gorge aside as a reservation, and the effect is of riding through a green corridor with almost no buildings.

   Read the complete Granville Gulf write-up.

5. 5. Rochester

   Rochester is a small Vermont town that happens to sit at a very good crossroads. It lies in the valley of the White River's upper reaches, along Route 100, the long north-south road that the state calls the Green Mountain Byway, with a handsome village green, a bandstand and a few white-clapboard buildings around it. Behind it, the Green Mountain National Forest rises in a series of wooded ridges, and the sense of remoteness is real, even though the interstate is not far away.

   Read the complete Rochester write-up.