Vernon
6/22/24
Intro
This is one of four rides that we did on a rainy camping trip to Fort Dummer State Park in June 2024. This weekend snagged us 7 towns! Fort Dummer State Park is a forest oasis just a mile or so out of the city of Brattleboro. We arrived late Saturday afternoon, pulled into our camping site, set up, and were able to get the first ride done before the sun set. That ride was the tiny triangle town of Vernon.
Vernon
This Vernon ride was a short 8 miles, four miles south and four miles north, just enough for us to get Vernon checked off our list. It might be the only ride that we’ve done that didn’t have any gravel at all (except for the driveway to the boat launch – see below).
Vernon is a little town (population 2141), a tiny triangle settled into the corner of the state and edged by both the Connecticut River and the Massachusetts border. This ride was a strange, angular and lopsided figure 8 shape, starting, stopping and crossing Vermont Route 142 several times. We parked at the Vernon Town Offices and Library, rode to the front of the building, and began on Governor Hunt Road headed south.
Governor Hunt Rd. is a paved but not heavily travelled road, which hugs the Connecticut River and passes both the Governor Hunt House and the (decommissioned) VT Yankee Power Plant right next to it. The road merged back onto 142, and we rode south for just a short distance, before turning left on Stebbins Rd. Stebbins is a short little loop that comes back to VT 142 again and continuing south again.
We passed a historic cemetery before turning a right turn onto Newton, which swung north through some really sweet residential areas, before coming back again to 142, turning left to go north this time. We passed a cute boat launch on a tiny pond, the town forest, and the pool and recreational fields before ending at the town offices again.
For a very small town, there is a lot of offerings and opportunities – from boating, fishing, town foresting, swimming or recreation in a short four mile stretch.
