St Johnsbury Part 5

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When we planned this summer’s travels to New England, we had selected and reserved campgrounds for all of June, July and August. We are planning to head back to Titusville Florida for the winter but not arriving until November 1st. That leaves us two full months that we need to figure out and since it is the middle of August already, we need to put at least a little thought into what our route will look like and where we want to explore as we headed south. We had previously visited Maine in 2018 but had spent nearly all 8 weeks of that trip along the coast of Maine. We knew there was much more of the state we had not checked out yet, so we concentrated on plans for most of September in the interior of that state.

It might seem risky to wait until a few weeks before our trip into Maine to start the planning process, but we had a couple of things going for us. There were numerous Elks Lodges we could utilize and once we get past Labor Day, the bulk of the summer travelers will be back to school and work so we should have no problems finding available camping spots. We rough out a series of stops at Elks Lodges and a county fairgrounds and call to reserve a week at a private campground in north central Maine. Those stops will take us through most of September.

Map of Our Updated New England Plans

Then we decide how we get from Maine to the east coast of Florida. The most direct route would be straight down Interstate 95. Of course that would mean traveling through Boston, New York City, Philadelphia and Washington. None of that sounds fun to us - at least while driving a motorhome pulling a Jeep.  We sketch out a plan that avoids the big cities on the east coast and figure out the timing of our stops so we can book two other state parks further south near Richmond Virginia and Savannah Georgia for 5 nights each. If it all works out, we should arrive at The Great Outdoors in Titusville on November 1.

When my birthday rolled around, we headed into the town of Bethlehem New Hampshire for an early afternoon dinner at Rek-Lis Brewing Company. By eating early, we still had lots of the afternoon left to get in a nearby hike. Mount Agassiz is on the southern end of town. There is a small parking area with room for a few cars and an old road beyond a gate that leads up the mountain. This is only a 1.5 mile round trip but does climb over 550 feet in elevation - a steep 14% average grade.

Starting Up Mt Agassiz

The road has seen better days and has cracked and broken asphalt the whole way up. It is a steep walk especially after having a meal and a beer. The land around Mt Agassiz is privately owned but hikers and, in the colder months, skiers and snowshoers are permitted. Back in the late 1800’s, this was a tourist destination in the area with an observatory built on the summit. Supposedly over 300 mountain peaks are visible from up top. There was one other car in the lot, so as we started the slow climb up, we kept expecting to see somebody coming back down. But we made it to the top without seeing a soul and found a rather unusual building at the top. 

More Uphill to Go

Unexpected Building at Summit

There is a bench at the prominent viewpoint to the south. It was a rather cloudy afternoon so we could not verify how many peaks are visible but it was still a very nice view.

Less than Ideal View

Next we turned our attention to the building. I was expecting to only be able to peek through the windows but we discovered that not only were the doors unlocked, they were open! With no signs of anyone around, and no “posted” or “no trespassing” signs, we cautiously enter the building. It was actually a rather nice structure with beautiful stonework and a couple of upstairs rooms as well.

Room Needs Furniture

Upstairs

Surprisingly, there was not much vandalism, graffiti or signs of wild animals using the place for shelter. It was obviously a home of some sort given there was bedroom and bathroom with a tub even! A calendar on the wall gave some idea of when this place may have last been inhabited - July 2000. But by far, the most unexpected find of any of our hikes was a scanning electron microscope! It almost looked like it could still be used with just a little work. There was even the manual and schematics sitting there. It seemed like the type of equipment some of my colleagues at Eastman Kodak may have used back in the day. Try as I might, I could not find any information about why a scanning electron microscope was up here. I doubt we will ever stumble upon anything more unusual on a hike.

Bathroom

The Calendar is Wide Open

A Scanning Electron Microscope!!!

We have managed to visit a great number of covered bridges during our past couple of months in the New England area, but there are always more to see. We have an Adventure Lab in the town of Lyndonville Vermont just north of camp. This would give us a chance to see five more in that small town. First stop is the Chamberlin Bridge. Built in 1881, it is only 69 feet long and crosses over the South Wheelock Branch of the Passumpsic River. It is still open to vehicles.

Chamberlin Covered Bridge

Next stop is the Schoolhouse Bridge. Built in 1871, it crosses the same river and is less than a half mile from the last bridge. This one is closed to vehicles but people can walk across. At only 42 feet long, it’s one of the small bridges. There is a pedestrian walkway on one side but it looks like debris from one of the recent storms has damaged that part of the bridge but the rest of it seems to be in good shape.

Schoolhouse Covered Bridge

Flood Debris Damages Pedestrian Portion

Next is the Bradley Covered Bridge crosses over Miller Run. Built in 1878, it is 57 feet long with a covered pedestrian walkway on one side. Still open to traffic and in nice shape.

Bradley Covered Bridge

The next stop was at the Sanborn Covered Bridge. This one was a rather unusual one. Originally built in 1872. It is 118 feet long. It is currently sitting in a field with just the upper portion of it sitting on large concrete blocks. It was taken out of service in 1960 and has been moved a few times, almost demolished, almost washed down the river during a storm. It is now privately owned and is trying to be rebuilt to be used in a new park in town. Two workers were repairing the roofing while we stopped by. We weren’t able to get very close to check it out but hopefully it will be able to stand tall once again.

Sanborn Covered Bridge Receives TLC

Bald Eagle Artwork

The last stop was the Randall Covered Bridge. Built in 1865, it still crosses a branch of the Passumpsic River but is no longer in service. It’s not very long at only 68 feet. Getting a closer look required us to walk through some tall weeds. Unfortunately we were unable to find the geocache supposedly hidden on the bridge. After finishing up the tour of these five covered bridges in Lyndonville, we head in town to find one geocache. Up on a hill overlooking downtown is the beautiful St Elizabeth’s Catholic Church. 

Randall Covered Bridge

St Elizabeth in Lyndonville

Chris has gone into downtown St Johnsbury during our stay but just to check out the farmers market. We decided to head there and wander around this historic old town. There is a nice mixture of old and new buildings and the downtown looks to be nicely preserved and vibrant.

Soldier's Monument in St Johnsbury

Right in the heart of downtown is the 50 acre campus of St Johnsbury Academy. This looks to be some sort of private high school. We debated as to whether this was a school for troubled or gifted teens. After seeing more of the campus and some of the students, we decided it is likely a boarding school for kids from very well off families. 

St Johnsbury Academy - Colby Hall

Art Gallery

We walked around much of the downtown area. There are lots of big old churches and the Passumpsic River runs along the town.

North Congregational Church

From Bridge Over Passumpsic River

The next day we head out for another hike in the Franconia Notch State Park. Our plan is to start near an area known as The Basin and then complete the 3 mile Cascade Brook and Basin Cascade Loop Trail. This part of the state park is very busy mainly because there are lots of beautiful falls all within a short walk of the parking area.

The Pemigewasset River was flowing quite well from some of the recent wet weather we’ve had in the region. The Basin has lots of smooth rock surface caused by years of erosion from the river flowing. The swirling water has undercut the rock and produced a small basin that was quite mesmerizing to watch.

The Basin

After checking out the easy portion of the trip, we set off up the Basin Cascades Trail. It is a pretty hike right along Cascade Brook. There are many opportunities to walk to the edge of the river to check out some of the falls.

Falls on Cascade Brook

The flow is substantial and it is obvious that there is also lot of soil mixed in with the water giving it a reddish yellow look. The trail is steep in sections and there are lots of exposed roots and mud which makes for a challenging hike at times.

Trail of Roots

We had seen a younger couple hike past us while I was stopped to take pictures. We knew there was going to be a water crossing up ahead but hadn’t thought much of it. As we continued up, we saw the couple heading back down the trail. I was convinced they looked like the type that planned on doing the full loop so I was surprised they had turned around. Of course, we eventually made it to the area where the trail crosses the brook. We can see a large rock in the middle of the water with the blue blaze paint as well as a tree on the opposite side with the same marking. This is where we are supposed to cross, but it was not looking promising. There wasn’t a row of rocks across the water like I was expecting or if there were, the water was too high and covering them. We surveyed the area a bit upstream and downstream to see if there was any place that looked like we could safely cross. After 5 minutes we realized that at minimum we would get wet up to our knees and given the current, we likely would have slipped and came out completely soaked. Now I know why the young couple had turned back and it made me feel less like a wimp when we did the same!

Another Waterfall

Chris Surveys the Crossing Point

After we get back to The Basin, we look at the maps and see that we can follow the Pemi Trail to the south, cross under the expressway and then take the bike path north on the east side of the road. So off we go. This trail is right along the river and was pretty even if there is the noise of traffic on the expressway. 

We get to a water crossing from a small tributary that feeds into the river. We were able to find a safe and dry way across the rocks and continue on.

We Were Able to Cross Here

In another quarter mile we come upon another water crossing. I believe this one is named Whitehouse Brook. This crossing was pretty wide and had a very fast current. We headed upstream a few hundred feet hoping to find a fallen tree or a series of rocks to use to get across but there wasn’t any place that looked safe. 

No Luck Crossing Here

We turn around having failed with even our backup hike. Maybe if this had been a drier summer, we would have been able to make the crossings? On the way back to the car, we are on the far side of The Basin and get the chance to see it from this perspective.

The Basin Again

Since we haven’t had any luck completing a hike, we still had the bulk of the afternoon to kill. We gave up on that plan and instead headed south a few miles to the town of Lincoln. We first stopped at Clark’s Trading Post to find a highly favorited geocache. This is a very popular destination in the area. The highlight is the “bear show”. Since 1949, this place has had a trained bear show. There is also a steam train ride and lots of other touristy things. It wasn’t the type of thing we felt obliged to do, but we did walk through the gift shop and found the cache we were looking for.

Clark's Trading Post

Beautiful Wurlitzer

Next we head into downtown Lincoln New Hampshire. We had an Adventure Lab to tour us around town and see some of the highlights. A small gas powered locomotive from a former wood mill was sitting in one business’s parking lot. The River Walk Resort looks to be a very popular place to stay when visiting the area.

Small Locomotive

River Walk Resort

We were also led to a short walk along the Pemigewasset River. It was also right next to a huge ski resort - Loon Mountain Resort. There are lots of homes, likely rentals, just off the trail and while it was fairly quiet in August, I suspect this place is loaded with winter enthusiasts. This river was rather calm but from the debris along the shore, I suspect it was flooded during rain storms last month.

Rocky Pemigewasset River Bed

After walking all around town, we have a second Adventure Lab that is more of a driving tour. We head to the entrance of the ski resort where there is a larger locomotive from the logging industry. One last stop on our tour was at an antique car museum. It was getting late so we didn’t go in to see the cars. However, there were two very unusual ones in the parking lot worth checking out. The yellow 1947 Crosley was built in Cincinnati Ohio and were sold through Macy’s department stores! The green car is a 1974 Reliant Robin. I can’t recall seeing other 3 wheel cars before. It doesn’t look particularly stable even if the sign in its window claims it is. We didn’t spend the day hiking, but it was still an interesting one.

Train at Loon Mountain Resort

Cool Old Cars

Three Wheels!

After a cold night, we took the next day off before heading out for a bike ride. The Presidential Range Rail Trail is a 19 mile trail that starts near the Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge and runs east to Gorham New Hampshire. We have actually visited this trail back in August or 2018 when we were staying in Twin Mountain. The draw back then was to find some geocaches since this trail has nearly 100 hides along its length. During that visit, we were just walking so we had only completed a couple miles but had said the trail “looks like it would be a good place for a bike ride”. It was a cool and dreary day but we hoped to stay dry. There was only one other vehicle at the trailhead parking lot so at least it shouldn’t be too busy.

Start of Presidential Trail

With the huge number of geocaches hidden along this trail, we knew that we could either consider this a “numbers run” and stop to look for all of them along the way or plan on getting in a bike ride and ignore all the hides. We decided to mainly consider this a bike ride and only stop occasionally to look for a cache. Since we had found most of the hides in the first 1.6 miles, we head to the boardwalk that overlooks Cherry Pond. As I was looking back at the blog post for our first visit here, I noticed the picture I took that time looked about the same as this time including the overcast sky.

Cherry Pond View - 2024

Cherry Pond View - 2018

The assessment from our first outing here was correct. This is a very nice trail to bicycle. It was in good enough shape that I probably could have ridden a road bike instead of my mountain bike. I suspect the views would have been even better had it been a nice sunny morning but it was nice even with the low hanging clouds on the mountains.

Nice Trail

Bridge

Mountain View

We would stop every couple miles and look for a geocache both on the ride out and back. We ended up finding 7 of the 8 we looked for. About 5 miles into the ride, we came upon a sign I can’t say we’ve seen before - Caution watch for sled dogs on the trail. We never did see the sled dogs on the trail but about a mile later we came upon the reason for the sign. We pass by the Muddy Paw Sled Dog Kennel. The dogs spotted us as we stopped to get a picture and the whole place started barking. It sounded like dozens of dogs and looking at the aerial image later, I counted about 40 kennels visible on the property. It turns out that they offer winter sled dog rides and rides during the rest of the year with some sort of wheeled cart. It kind of looked like it might be a fun experience and from the sounds of it the dogs were really hoping that we were stopping for a ride.

Watch for Sled Dogs!

Muddy Paw Sled Dogs Kennel

These Dogs Want to Run

As we continue on, there were stretches of the trail that narrowed down to a center track but even then, the brush was cut back making for an easy ride and since there was practically no other people out, we never had an issue with moving into the grassy area. At about the 11 mile mark, it starts to mist a little bit. We decided to stop and have our lunch and turn around in case the weather gets worse. Fortunately it never switched over to a rain and after a few miles we were back to just overcast skies but dry. This was a fun ride and may need to come back to complete the eastern portion of the trail. Plus there are still dozens of geocaches to find on any future visit.

Trail Narrows

Misty Ride