Green Mountain Highway - The Most Scenic Drives in America: 120 Spectacular Road Trips - page 861

of the Deerfield River plies instead the Yankee innkeeper's trade, serving a cluster of
nearby ski resorts.
Gen. John Stark passed this way during the Revolutionary War as he led his troops in
1777 to the Battle of Bennington, where he swore that the British would be defeated “or
tonight Molly Stark sleeps a widow.” Stark not only survived, he triumphed, and in tribute
Rte. 9 is now called the Molly Stark Trail.
Follow the trail east out of Wilmington for about three miles and you'll arrive at Molly
Stark State Park, where a path leads to the summit of 2,415-foot Mt. Olga. The most ap-
pealing views are off to the east, toward the rolling hills of New Hampshire, but in early
autumn the mountain'sowncloak ofcrimson maples andcanary-yellow birches easily sur-
passes the lure of the distant horizon.
2. Green Mountain National Forest
Ever since it was settled by southern New England colonists hankering for elbow room,
Vermont has meant many things to many people—survival on hardscrabble farms, the
lonely grandeur of the Green Mountains, the sun's sparkle on freshly powdered mountain
slopes. Rte. 100, wending its way north from Wilmington, visits all of these.
Within its first 10 miles north of the Molly Stark Trail, the drive links two of the state's
many skiing meccas, Haystack and Mt. Snow—the latter named not for the Reuben Snow
farm that occupied this site until 1954. Farming was once far more widespread in the un-
forgiving uplands of Vermont.
Much of the territory that makes up the nearly 400,000-acre Green Mountain National
Forest, which Rte. 100 enters just beyond West Dover, was cleared of trees a century and
a half ago. Today two great swaths of the state's rugged heartland comprises the national
forest, established in 1932.
3. Townshend State Park
Tucked next to an oxbow bend of the West River, West Townshend lies one mile east of
Rte.100'sconvergencewithRte.30atEastJamaica.TwomilestothesouthatTownshend,
you'll find the entrance to Townshend State Park. Nearby, the river is spanned by two very
different structures—the Townshend Dam, built in 1961, and the Scott Covered Bridge.
Datingto1870,thisbridgeisoneofthelongestandhandsomestofthestate's100-plussur-
viving wooden spans. Contrary to legend, these shedlike structures were enclosed to pro-