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Welcome to the world’s foremost autumnal experience—a jaunt through the iconic mountains and orchards of rural Vermont. You may notice a few unsettling changes this year, but we’re determined to carry on and provide an excursion that is, in its own way, unforgettable. Buckle up, loosen that infinity scarf (it’s eighty-one degrees here), and get ready to see some things you’ll never be able to unsee.
Our first stop is Wistful Valley Orchard. Yes, it is taking longer than usual to get there—good observation. That’s because flash floods opened up a sinkhole on Route 116 that we’ve been calling the Crater to Hades.
Here we are, at the orchard, a ghostly wasteland with nary an apple in sight. As any Vermonter could tell you, back in May there was an infamous night of frost when there should have been spring warmth and gentle dew, and on that night all the apple blossoms were blasted from the bough.
I’m sorry, what’s that? You want your money back for the orchard portion of the tour? Well, we want our predictable weather patterns back. But instead we’re getting one extreme-weather event after another, aren’t we? I guess that’s what happens when humanity heedlessly pumps carbon dioxide into the planet’s atmosphere for decades, despite knowing all the while the deadly havoc that doing so would wreak.
Let’s move on to the corn maze! Our apocalyptic rainfall has actually been fine for the corn, making this the only part of the tour that remains unscathed. But I’m guessing you didn’t fly here from Indiana to marvel at our corn.
We’re going to pause at this popular lookout point. Over thataway, through the sooty smog redolent with Canadian wildfire smoke, we can almost make out the Adirondacks. What a view. It’s not for the faint of heart.
Hello, yes. I see that the Leaf Peepers have piped up. You will notice a handful of shrivelled and naked maple trees over yonder. Blame the floods again! Trees with waterlogged roots are more vulnerable to foliar pathogens and fungus. The leaves literally said “fuck this” and dipped.
But notwithstanding, many of our trees are, indeed, still green. Temperatures have not dropped enough to signal the biochemical process that transforms the mountainside into its usual kaleidoscope of pigmentation. It may as well be summer. And, with your knee-high boots, head-to-toe flannel, and that cursed infinity scarf, you’re probably on the verge of heat stroke. I’d recommend a swim in one of our famous gorges, except the floodwaters have churned up E. coli to levels unsafe for human contact.
Ah, there’s nothing like the harvest. It sure does make you think, doesn’t it? Makes you think about reaping. Makes you think about sowing. Doesn’t it?
The last stop on our tour was supposed to be the iconic hilltop above Restless Hollow Farm, but it’s currently closed off owing to teeming crowds of annoying photographers. That one’s not a climate-related issue, just something else we’ve got going on here.
Still plenty of other things to photograph! Our red efts have grown fangs; our fawns are demonic; our usually woolly bears nude and smooth. Our glacial springs burble with the torpor and consistency of a melting pint of Phish Food ice cream. Our geese are confounded, and circle overhead with the vultures. That’s probably nothing to worry about.
Well, we have some extra time since we had to cancel the pumpkin patch (gourd rot) and the soup festival (too hot for soup). We could either visit the corn maze again or spend a couple more hours among the devastated apple crops. You said you liked “spooky season”—what could be more haunting than the mournful cries of an influencer who came all this way for juicy snaps with Macs and Cortlands, but now stands before a fruitless valley in despair?
We hope you have not enjoyed this tour. We hope you have not enjoyed it so much that you devote the rest of your life to the cause of ecological activism, maybe even sue for climate justice. Either way, come back soon and check out our hiking tour, which, because the air-quality index is in the triple digits, takes place inside. ♦
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