Sunday, August 29, 2021

Green Mountains Waterfalls

Sunday, we checked out of the hotel, had breakfast and took VT-108 north for about 10 miles into Smugglers' Notch State Park and parked at Big Spring.  Across the street, we picked up Hell Brook Trail and went just over 0.1 miles and got off the trail at the base of Hell Brook Cascades.


It's a tall waterfall, but the water level was rather low.


I went a little further up the trail and got off and went past a huge rock overhang.


There was an upper section of the waterfall that isn't visible from the base.  The water was low, but it was really cool falling through a narrow crack in the rock.


After some pictures we headed back.


Our next stop was just a couple miles back up the road to the Bingham Falls Trailhead.  The trail picked up across the street and led to West Branch Waterbury River above the falls.


The river formed a beautiful gorge here, full of potholes and small drops.


The trail then descended steeply to the base of Bingham Falls.


It's a real scenic 30-foot drop into a beautiful green pool.


I scrambled around on the rocks to get some pictures from different angles.


Then we headed back to the car.


Our next stop was just on the other side of Stowe at the Moss Glen Falls Natural Area in C.C. Putnam State Forest.  The short Moss Glen Falls Trail led through an open area on a boardwalk.


There were a lot of wildflowers blooming along here.


Orange jewelweed were abundant.


We also saw some white turtleheads.


The fruit of devil's darning needle were interesting.


The boardwalk ended near the creek and the trail headed steeply up to an overlook of the spectacular Moss Glen Falls.


The waterfall is over 100 feet and composed of many different sections, each with their own personality.  From up here at the overlook, the entire waterfall was visible.  After some pictures, we headed back down to the creek and walked up to the base.  I wore water shoes while Sandy took it as a challenge to make it to the falls dry (and she did).


Only the lowest sections were visible from the base, but it was an incredible scene.  I climbed around on the rocks to get pictures from different angles.


Then we made the short hike back to the car.


From here, we headed south on VT-100 into Green Mountain National Forest and parked at Warren Falls.  A short trail led to the waterfall.


It's a series of small cascades and drops through a gorge among huge boulders.


There were some very inviting pools along river.  I wore a bathing suit and jumped from a boulder into the chilly water.  With a drop of about 8 feet, it was a lot of fun and I jumped a couple times.


Sandy didn't want to get in the cold water and Alex certainly didn't, so after my swim, we took off.


Continuing down Route 100, we entered Granville Gulf Reservation and parked at Moss Glen Falls.  Right at the start of the trail, we could see Little Moss Glen Falls flowing down an unnamed tributary.


Right past here, we reached the beautiful Moss Glen Falls.


And this was another really spectacular Moss Glen Falls in Vermont.


There was some pretty blue wood aster flowering near the creek.


I waded in the shallow pool to get some pictures from different angles.


Then we took off.


We made one more stop at Texas Falls Recreation Area back in the national forest.  The main parking was full so we had to park by the picnic area and hike back up the road along the creek.


There was a little vole along the side of the road.


Crossing the bridge over Hancock Branch, there was a nice view of Texas Falls.


It flows through a narrow gorge in multiple drops separated by pools.  We couldn't really see the lower drops well from here though.


Across the bridge we went down to creek level further downstream to see the entire thing.


We got back on Texas Falls Nature Trail and made a short loop hike through the area, finishing back up along Hancock Branch.


We crossed the bridge again and headed back to the car.


From here, we drove south to White River Junction.  After checking into Comfort Inn, we walked over to Wicked Awesome BBQ and had dinner outside with Alex.

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