Vermont/Mass. Border Question - Help

[Bestbugz]

Our Venturing Crew is Hiking the Mass. Section of the At over spring break this year and are in the planning stages. North of the Vermont - Mass. border there is a road intersecting with the AT called County Road. Can anyone help me by letting know if this road is maintained and accessible by vehicle or is it a dirt un-maintained road.

Thanks,

Don Varga

[Lone Wolf]

It's maintained to a certain point then it becomes single track dirt road to where it crosses the LT/AT. I drove my small pick-up on it some years back.

[max patch]

You can also drive (pavement) to the Pine Cobble Trail in Williamstown, MA which is a blue blaze (2 mi IIRC) that leads to the AT 1 mile south of the VT border.

[Minerva]

It's best to reach the County Road trailhead from the Stamford side. It's not a good road from the Pownal side, barely passable in the best conditions unless you have an ATV.

Turn onto the paved Mill Rd in Stamford (VT 8 and 100) and in about 2 miles turn left onto County Road. The road will change from paved to dirt and is not plowed the last mile to the Trailhead in winter. It's a wee bit over 4 miles from VT 8/100 to the trailhead. This road crossing is 0.5m north of Seth Warner.

On your March spring break hike there's a good chance this road will be unplowed or really and I mean really muddy. It's a real thrill to ride the back dirt roads of Vermont once the frost comes out of the ground and sucks your car deep up to the axle!

Let's us know y'all made it out alive :D
MrsGorp

[virtualfrog]

I would definitely not plan on being able to access little apparently unmaintained roads like that in Vermont during the spring thaw. Many of the maintained dirt roads here in the NE Kingdom would be considered unpassable by all of my out-of-state relatives that part of the year. It's more like mudbogging than driving :).

[Peaks]

Seconding Mrs. Grop, April generally isn't a good time for backpacking in New England. Frost will probably be coming out of the ground, and thus it will be muddy. Or, the trail will still be covered with ice and snow.

[oruoja]

Yeah, mud season is something to experience to appreciate it. Right now it's 55 degrees up here and my road is 2.7 miles of mud to the paved highway and it's going to rain the next two days.

[virtualfrog]

I'm so glad I live at the top of the road here :)

[Bestbugz]

First I would like to thank all that responded. We started our hike on March 31st and went for 4 days. We had to leave early due to a family emergency of one of the leaders. Lots of snow, some mud but lots of fun. Your input helped us plan for this trip. Some sections in Mass. were not marked very well but as I told the scouts we're ahead of the trail maintenance season. We did meet a large friendly dog and his owner that had marked most of the trail for us, thanks to you too. We'll be back in July to complete the remainder of the state.