Turn off the highway here and Vermont gives you 71 miles of peaks, passes, and old secrets

Vermont’s most rewarding road trip

There’s a 71-mile stretch of Vermont road that most people drive past on their way to Stowe. That’s a mistake.

The Green Mountain Byway threads through six towns, climbs over a mountain pass with a smuggling past, crosses rivers on bridges built before the Civil War, and drops you into village centers that look like they haven’t changed in a hundred years.

You don’t need a plan. You just need to turn off the highway.

Six towns, three routes, one epic drive

The byway runs along Routes 100, 108, and 15 through Waterbury, Stowe, Morristown, Hyde Park, Johnson, and Cambridge.

The Green Mountains rise to the west, the Worcester Range lines the east, and between them you get open meadows, working farms, and forest that closes in tight around the road. All six towns sit on the Vermont State Historic Register.

The U.S. Congress set up the National Scenic Byways Program in 1991, and this route checks every box: historic, archaeological, cultural, natural, scenic, and recreational.

The route that shaped northern Vermont for centuries

Long before anyone called it a byway, this corridor connected river valleys, hill farms, and mountain villages across Vermont’s north country.

The route served as the main thread linking communities through the Green Mountains, and it grew piece by piece over generations.

In the fall of 2018, the state extended it to its current 71-mile form, pulling all six towns into a single designated route. The extension didn’t change what the road already was.

It just gave it a name that matched its reach.

Vermont’s highest peak watches over the whole drive

Mount Mansfield stands 4,393 feet above sea level, and on clear days you can see its ridgeline from miles away.

Look at it from the east or west and the profile takes shape: a forehead, a nose, a chin, an Adam’s Apple, all formed by the natural contour of the ridge. The Chin sits highest.

Up there, rare alpine tundra has survived since the Ice Ages, one of only three places in Vermont where it still exists. The Long Trail crosses the summit ridge on its way through.

The oldest long-distance trail in America runs right through here

The Long Trail stretches 272 miles along the Green Mountains, from the Massachusetts border all the way to Canada.

Crews from the Green Mountain Club built it between 1910 and 1930, and it became the model that inspired the Appalachian Trail.

The club still maintains it today from its headquarters on the Waterbury-Stowe Road, just off the byway. The trail crosses through the byway corridor at several points, including the summit of Mount Mansfield.

If you want to walk a piece of American hiking history, this is where to start.

Smugglers’ Notch hides its secrets in plain sight

The notch got its name the hard way. When the Embargo Act of 1807 cut off American trade with Canada, Vermonters who depended on that trade didn’t stop. They just got creative.

They moved goods through this narrow mountain pass, tucking supplies among the boulders and into natural caves carved into the cliffs.

It kept going through the War of 1812, with smugglers running the rugged path between Mount Mansfield and Spruce Peak under cover of darkness.

The Vermont Historical Society still documents those crossings. The boulders are still there.

Route 108 through the Notch is unlike any road in New England

The road through Smugglers’ Notch covers only about 3.5 miles, but those miles take work.

Route 108 climbs over a shoulder of Mount Mansfield through dense forest, past sheer rock outcroppings and cliff walls that press in close on both sides.

The grades get steep, the lanes narrow to one in places, and the switchbacks are tight enough that vehicles over 40 feet and truck-trailer combinations over 45 feet total are banned outright.

The state closes the road from roughly mid-October to mid-May. It simply can’t be plowed.

The Barnes Camp Visitor Center marks the start of the stretch.

Moss Glen Falls drops into a forest just outside Stowe

A short drive from Stowe’s village center, Moss Glen Falls ranks among Vermont’s tallest waterfalls.

The trail to reach it starts on a boardwalk that winds through wetlands and meadows before following a brook upstream into the trees.

You can stand at the base and look up, or take the path to an overlook above for a wider view of the drop.

The whole area sits inside C.C. Putnam State Forest and carries designation as a Vermont Natural Area, recognized for its ecological value.

The Stowe Recreation Path follows the river for 5 miles

Planning for the Stowe Recreation Path started in 1964, when Mountain Road traffic made walking or biking the corridor nearly impossible.

Work finished in two phases between 1981 and 1989, and what they built is a 5.3-mile paved greenway running from Stowe Village to the northern end of Mountain Road.

The path crisscrosses the West Branch of the Little River, with wooden bridges carrying you from one bank to the other. It runs year-round for walking, biking, and running, and in winter you can ski it.

Every byway town has a covered bridge worth finding

Vermont has about 100 covered bridges statewide, and the byway passes through towns with some of the best.

The Gold Brook Covered Bridge in Stowe, built in 1844, is the only 19th-century Howe truss covered bridge still on a public road in the state, and it’s been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1974.

Down the route, the Power House Bridge in Johnson went up in 1870. The Grist Mill Bridge in Jeffersonville followed two years later.

Each one is still standing, still crossable, and worth pulling over for.

New England’s longest rail trail runs through four byway towns

The Lamoille Valley Rail Trail stretches 95 miles from St. Johnsbury to Swanton, connecting 18 towns on a crushed-stone surface 10 feet wide.

The maximum grade stays at 3 percent, which makes it accessible for cyclists, walkers, and wheelchair users. Four byway towns sit right on it: Cambridge, Johnson, Hyde Park, and Morrisville.

The trail follows the old roadbed of the St. Johnsbury and Lamoille County Railroad, which ran freight through this valley until the mid-1990s. The grade crossings are still there.

The trains aren’t.

The quieter towns are where Vermont gets real

Stowe gets the attention, but the byway’s smaller stops are worth slowing down for.

In Jeffersonville, at the northern end of the Smugglers’ Notch drive, the Cambridge Greenway links the village center straight to the rail trail.

Johnson has the Power House Bridge sitting above the ruins of an old powerhouse on the Gihon River. Morrisville’s downtown lines up along the trail with shops and restaurants within walking distance.

Hyde Park anchors the middle of the route. Each town is small, quiet, and completely itself.

Cold Hollow Cider Mill has been pressing cider since 1974

Between Waterbury and Stowe on Route 100, Cold Hollow Cider Mill has been running the same rack-and-cloth cider press for roughly a century.

You can watch the apples go in and the cider come out, then sample it for free before you decide whether to take some home. The cider donuts have their own following.

Inside, an enclosed beehive lets you watch honeybees at work through glass.

The mill opens every day at 8 a.m. and stays open until 6 p.m., year-round, no matter the season or the weather.

Drive the Green Mountain Byway in Vermont

The byway follows Routes 100, 108, and 15 through all six towns, and you can pick it up from almost any point along the way.

The closest major airport is Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport, about an hour’s drive from Stowe. One important note: Route 108 through Smugglers’ Notch closes from roughly mid-October to mid-May each year.

During that stretch, Routes 100 and 15 give you the alternate path. Full maps and trip-planning details are available on the official website.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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