PA to ME / Bradbury Mountain State Park
Driving from Allegheny National Forest, PA to Bradbury Mountain State Park, ME | Camping in Green Mountain National Forest | Hike Old Stone Tower, VT | Pierce Home State Historic Site | Bradbury Mountain State Park | June 2024
After making it through the warm night in Pennsylvania, we really only had to get through a longer drive today and then we would be in the clear heatwave-wise. We didn’t have any plans to stop today, just to drive straight to Vermont and hopefully find a place where we could camp for the weekend. We continued our route across Northern PA, entering in to some more new counties before we made our way North to New York. The highlight of our drive was seeing a black bear run across the highway — our first bear sighting in the Northeast!
We crossed into New York South of Elmyra, then made our way East to Binghamton and North to Albany. Our only stop was at a rest area along the way, where we stopped to stretch our legs and have lunch. It was still quite warm at that point. Then throughout the afternoon, we ran into thunderstorms on our way to Albany. We hit Albany right before rush hour, and traffic was pretty backed up — but out of all of these, seeing a manhole without a cover on the right side of the road was probably the worst part! It was a relief to finally cross into Vermont and make our way into the Green Mountain National Forest. Driving VT-9 brought back happy memories of other trips we’d taken through the state — coming home from OCS graduation in 2015, starting our vacation to the Atlantic Provinces of Canada in 2016, and moving to Connecticut in 2017. We found a place to camp at the Somerset Airfield, about 9 miles North of the highway. The campground is a big grassy area, and we found a spot to camp that was far enough away from our neighbors. We had some dinner, then settled in for a weekend here.
Because we didn’t want to have to find other open campsites throughout the weekend, we were content to stay in one place until Monday. On Saturday, Curtis contemplated hiking 10 miles round trip to a peak on his challenge list, but since there were rain showers throughout the day, he decided to put off the hike until Sunday or Monday. Instead, we took it easy, and took Charlotte for walks on the forest roads between rain showers. However, that evening when I checked the weather, I saw that they were predicting severe storms and possible tornadoes the next day throughout much of Vermont and New Hampshire. Really?? We thought we were in the clear from dealing with tornadoes now that we were up here! We were skeptical that they would be that bad, but also didn’t want to take unnecessary risks. Also we were slightly concerned that if it rained too much that we would end up stuck in this grassy field.
After studying the map and looking for camping options outside the main area that was threatened, we decided to head straight to Maine the next day. This would also change our intended plans and route for the week, but we still had 3 weeks to ourselves so we were sure we could use those plans on our return trip. And so early on Sunday morning, we packed up and got back on VT-9 heading East. Honestly, it ended up being a good idea to leave because our house battery had dropped down to 20% because of how overcast it had been — that was the lowest we’d ever seen it go!
It was predicted to be rainy off and on throughout the day, with the severe storms coming in the afternoon/evening, so we planned a few stops to make the drive more exciting than going from PA-VT had been. Our first stop was in Brattleboro, VT, where we stopped to go for a short hike up to the Retreat Stone Tower. The Retreat is an old sanitarium/psychiatric service facility dating back almost 200 years with quite a positive history all things considered. We parked across the road (Cedar Street) from the hike in a lot for the Harris Hill Ski Jump, then crossed the road and made the half mile hike up to the tower which was built by patients in 1887. The trail was green and mossy, with steady elevation gain all the way up to the top. Unfortunately we couldn’t climb up the tower and there weren’t any views, but it was cool to see nonetheless. We prepared to be rained on, but stayed dry the whole way. After that, we got back on the road and entered into New Hampshire.
We drove East across New Hampshire, taking NH-9 to US-202 all the way into Maine. We made one stop in NH at Franklin Pierce Homestead State Historic Site, the place where President Pierce lived from infancy till his marriage. We also learned that his father, Benjamin Pierce, served in the Revolutionary War and was twice governor of NH. Curtis talked quite a bit with the ranger on duty about ‘New Hampshire’s favorite son’, and even got a couple book recommendations out of it.
After that, we pressed on into Maine and to our intended campground for the night, in Bradbury Mountain State Park. We found a first come-first served site available and settled in. We knew the storms were supposed to pass over here as well, but the worst of the storms were supposed to head North, and there were enough other people camping for us to think that maybe we weren’t crazy to still be camping tonight, and feel ‘safety in numbers’.
Since there were still several hours before the storms, we decided to hike up to the peak tonight. We walked across the road from the campground and started on the Northern loop trail. This made our hike up to the peak 1.2 miles long over a very gradual trail. It was another green and mossy hike, with thick fog covering the area. We loved the cool and moody scenery, but of course the fog meant that we didn’t have any view from the peak. Oh well, at least it was good weather for Charlotte to hike! For our return trip, we took the short and steep trail, .2 miles straight downhill back to the trailhead, then returned to the campground. Check out our AllTrails trip recording here.
We enjoyed dinner and a pleasant evening until the storms arrived. All in all, they weren’t too bad where we were, just loud. And there were confirmed tornadoes in VT and NH, so we felt a little justified in coming here, though we may have been just fine. Once the storms had passed, it was a quiet night spent under the pines.
