Stowe, Elmore, Morristown
9/22/24
We parked at the southern end of the Stowe recreational path in Stowe village, and then road through the end of the village to turn a quick right onto Brush Hill Road.
The next mile and a half on Brush Hill go up steeply, to a nice view at the beginning of Brownsville Road.
Turning left on Brownsvilled Road, it goes through a forested area with some recent new house construction before going through part of the Putman State Forest and Brownsville Story Ridge Forest.
The road is a fun and easy class 4 in the forest, and then changes to a good town dirt road at the horse farm at the edge of the forest, with great views of the Worcester Range to the east.
You pass the Moss Glen Falls parking area at the beginning of the hiking trail. At the end of Moss Glen Falls Road, you turn onto Elmore Mt road. For the next 7.5 miles, you head north along the west side of the Worcester Mountain Range.
The Elmore Mt fire tower is visible in one place, Mt Mansfield and many mountains up the down the range are in full view to the west at many places along Mt Elmore Road. There are open fields and some large houses for great views to the west.
There is not much vertical climbing along this stretch, the dirt road is wide and has some traffic. At the north end you intersect Vt Route 12 and Elmore Road.
There is a fast downhill on pavement to the next left turn onto paved roads that bring you past Copley Hospital and the National Guard Armory. Then you zig zag through the southern side of Morristown to Old Route 100 near the Rock Art brewery.
You head west a few hundred yards to cross Route 100 Bypass to reach Morrisville Corners Road, to the west, paved. At Morristown Corners is the Black Diamond BBQ and social club in the Morristown Corner building (since 1812) operating a few hours a week, according to signage.
The route continues on a paved road for another mile before turning to a wide dirt road through residential lots and forest passing Mud City Loop on the right and the Lemoille County Nature Center.
At the end, you come to a red covered bridge where a choice in routing is available. We chose to take Moran Loop (up) instead of Sterling Valley Road (down). The former is steep up, about 18% for a ways, whereas Sterling Valley Road follows the brook down to Stagecoach road, a much easier route considering vertical climbing.
We turned off Moran onto West Hill Road which became paved at Percy Hill road, for a lot of down hill back to Route 100 at Shaws supermarket. We passed some nice properties and some views, going down West Hill.
Then you return to the parking area for the Stowe rec path, and wind through the traffic to your car.