Ride 3: Jericho, Bolton, Duxbury, Richmond & Huntington

It’s been a streak of amazingly dry, sunny weather over the past week or two: not great for the garden, but fantastic for riding. With that streak forecast to be ended on Sunday by showers and thunderstorms, I hadn’t planned a 251 ride this weekend. However, by Saturday night the coast looked clearer and I decided to give it a shot. Because I hadn’t planned on doing one, and because it was still supposed to rain by early afternoon, I chose to keep it local. Extremely local. Including my hometown of Jericho in this ride hadn’t actually been the plan, but since I looped it in and rode gravel in town, it counts! Because I knew these roads so well, this was not the only time I strayed from the planned route.

I began by heading out Nashville Road into West Bolton. I rode past Snowflake Bently’s House and my friend Tucker’s farm operation too. It wasn’t all lovely dirt punctuated with history and vegetables though: Nashville Road parallels the Ethan Allen Firing Range. The National Guard and others use it for training and exercises. Other than the occasional helicopter or distant large artillery firing, we can’t much hear it from our house. It is strange having a large portion of our town cut off from access (though you can nordic ski on the loops they maintain for biathlon training there). Anyway, after the flat cross over to West Bolton, it was a quick up into Bolton Notch.

As you get into the Notch, things tighten in on you and it’s essentially a couple cliff faces, some wetlands, a house or two and the road. It’s got a nice quiet feel in there, so quiet in fact that I could clearly hear the peregrine falcons that nest on the cliffs. There aren’t too many places in the state where they nest and these cliffs are one of them. They’re so protected in fact that the state closes this climbing area and other habitat from April to August so the birds can raise their young without being disturbed. Fairly quickly the road tips down down towards the Winooski river. On the way down, I couldn’t help notice the thimbleberries blooming. They’re really popping off and we should have a good roadside crop this year. Later, I did see many members of the less-than-kind family of plants though (including poison parsnip) so be careful out there!

After giving the brakes a workout, I arrived at the floor of my ride. Form here, I’d curve along the Winooski River, following it out the the Bolton Falls Dam. But first I had to get across to the south shore. Up until 5 years ago, I’d have to have ridden downstream into Jonesville, then back upstream. Hikers on the Long Trail also had to make that detour as well, until the trail was rerouted and a new bridge was built. It’s for sure still a footbridge and intended for use by hikers, but the GMC doesn’t seem to mind people hoofing their bikes up the steps and walking their them across. I for one was very glad to have the more direct route.

Following along the river is so nice. I passed many, many bikers taking advantage of the weather reprieve and quiet road. I also passed some people who decided to canoe the rapids under the railroad trestle, which is boney even with good water levels and the river looked quite low. Hope they didn’t leave too much of their boat behind on the rocks. Eventually I made it to the dam. There were some folks fishing and a group of dudes who looked like they were doing some whitewater instruction before heading into the water to practice. The dam was a nice place to rest for a minute. I’m always so curious about what the falls there must have looked like before the dam was built. Apparently this one was originally constructed in 1899, so I’d really need to use the wayback machine to see that. Oh well, maybe one day it will come down. But for now it’s generating electricity for Green Mountain Power and creating a half-way decent recreation area.

One of many LT crossings during this project, though it’s not often you can ride ON it

I worked my way back along Duxbury Road and headed into Richmond. This is where I called an audible and headed up Dugway Road. Unfortunately, Dugway was washed out during a fall storm last year. It’s been closed to all traffic since, and though that technically includes pedestrians and bikers, I decided to do a little light trespassing…it’s just such a beautiful road! I eventually wound my way south and into Huntington, past a tree farm, then looped my way back north. I eventually passed another dam, this one much older and on a different scale than the earlier one. Originally constructed as a sawmill in the early 1800s this dam created Gillett Pond and a ton of habitat and recreational opportunities. It’s a prime skating spot in the winter! The dam is obviously in disrepair and needing some help. While there is a move to take down many dams, (to me) the positives of this one outweigh the negatives. There’s a group called Friends of Gillett Pond who are working to get a new dam built. After passing the pond, I rode the rollercoaster down Wes White Hill, across the Winooski in Jonesville and back up Stage Road. I then cut back onto Nashville and bolted to the end!

Every state is represented (in alphabetical order no less!) plus a few extra VT plates

Being able to just jump on my bike and tick off a ride for this project was such a luxury. I know there will be hours in the car for many of these, so I’m trying to spread out the ones close to home. But I can imagine the last ride of this undertaking will be in a far-flung corner of Vermont, despite my best efforts to be intentional about the order. Looking forward to doing a little driving to get to a new route this holiday weekend though!