From our campsite at Jamaica State Park, we headed out early to…

1: Lye Brook Falls, Manchester, VT

Which was about a 30 minute drive, letting us arrive around 7:30/8AM. The drive there is a steep incline that winds through some neighborhoods and you don’t think you’re in the right place, until all of a sudden you turn onto a totally unpaved, gravel, super bumpy lumpy road and you’re like – yep, I get it.

It’s in the (surprise) Lye Brook Wilderness Area and there’s a little guestbook they ask you to sign in to, which I thought was pretty cool. When we arrived, we were at the top of the list and by the time we left, there were a ton more people and some of them were international. Cool to think they are interested enough by this place to come so far – like, what? Random, but maybe this place is better known than I think.

The Lye Brook Falls trail is like a 5.5 mile round trip (don’t listen to All Trails which claims 4) with a little over 900 ft of elevation gain. There is basically no break in the gradual uphill until reaching the falls, then on the return it’s the exact opposite. Bring poles! Make sure your toes aren’t too tight in your toe boxes. I wore my knee stabilizer on the way down, just in case. Lots of water and bug spray are a must too.

When you arrive, it’s gonna be kinda slippery and muddy – it’s that orange-ish somewhat sandy mud that can feel like walking on marbles. You can choose to go downward on a sketchy eroded path to a rock platform and view the falls, or upward toward on a different eroded path to the middle of the falls where there are some places to sit – and it seems like this is where most people get their photos.

Lye Brook Falls is unique because the water in this area is foamy like soap because of the lye and where the water gets agitated (like, along every rock it bumps along down the falls) it makes little soap bubbles. From far away, I thought the flowing soap water at the top of the falls looked like thick white icicles.

We packed ourselves back in the car, then drove to our next stop a little over an hour away at…

2: Thundering Brook Falls, Killington, VT

Where we parked in the tiniest parking lot on the left side of the road (maybe 5 spots?). Thundering Brook Falls is a part of the Appalachian Trail – albeit a super tiny one. Now we’ve done snippets of the Appalachian Trail in fiiiive states.

It’s a little, flat, half-mile boardwalk surrounded with wildflowers, bushes, and bees. It ends at a tiny observation platform of the falls on the left, which is where all the photos of this place are taken. The water leads to the right and down under a historic-looking building. It’s a cute pit-stop but I wouldn’t recommend coming all this way just for it.

When we came back to the parking lot, one of the back doors to my car was WIDE open and no other cars were there anymore. Nothing was moved or taken that we could tell. I can’t figure out what happened… either:

• we left a door open when we walked away from the car, and the bystander didn’t close it for us (why?) or,
• someone opened the door for funsies, then just… left it open?

Either way it was fine… I guess I’m grateful we were in the land of friendly Vermont people and not home in Baltimore haha.

3: Jamaica State Park

Back home for night number two of tent camping in our lean-to at the Ironwood site. If you were going to think of campgrounds in terms of city sizes, Jamaica State Park is definitely more of quiet town vibe vs. where we stayed the next night at Little River State Park which feels more like a small city.

I ate campfire gnocchi for dinner this night, and I’m pretty sure Ike cooked himself a steak. I felt so serene here, it was the best. We had a relatively relaxed timeline for this trip which helped so much with the overall mood too.