powderfreak

This would do it.

I'll be honest, the traffic never bothered me. It's like 4-6 days out of 365... foliage is the worst like what we just went through, but you know when its coming and can navigate it. I generally find those things overblown but people lose their minds with social media photos and stuff of peak events. Whatever, its the price you pay for living where everyone wants to visit. For us, it really was the characteristics of the town and where we were changed over time. I don't want to go on an AirBnB rant, I've used them and they serve a great purpose. I'm also not someone who wants to tell someone what they can and can't do with their property. However, we used to have a bit more of a community in the area. Local families lived in our townhome area, we had local young professionals (we lived next to a couple Inntopia developers for up to a decade, F/B Director at Trapps, etc), there were people living nearby, dogs, kids and it felt different. Now, we've seen most of them leave and units turned into straight AirBnB rentals with new folks every weekend. Strangers wandering around, usually respectful, sometimes not, but it's just different. It was like living in the middle of a hotel operation. Cleaning crews rolling in around 11am after folks checkout of neighboring units. The vibe changed drastically over the past decade from one of like community to just living in the middle of vacationers. Units used to be owned by people, now the HOA even just has units with LLCs listed as contacts and it's like, what are we doing? I loved the location, the Rec Path, the river, but as getting older, we stopped going out so being walking distance to like Piecasso became less important. Going to the bars with friends and walking home was fun a 12 years ago, ha. But overall, it was more just having strangers around all the time, people on our porch looking in because they are lost and forgot where they rented for the night, just things that come up when living in the middle of one of the biggest AirBnB battles in the state of Vermont that's raging between the town Selectboard and residents right now.

Rain?

Got to play the Mountain Course at Stowe last week for a fund raiser. It’s usually the only time of the year I get out on this exclusive track. Honestly, it’s a sort of comical course in terms of difficulty because there’s zero margin for error. Don’t hit the fairway or even if you do, it might skip off a cliff or into the unfindable fescue.

That’s awesome. Well done capturing her on camera.

Agreed and that’s what is great about foliage, any rolling topography covered in color is awesome. Your area of NE CT is top tier, always loved going to the lake in the fall, the quiet corner. Fields, hills, rock walls, barns, foliage.

I’ll say it is certainly increasing and foliage traffic seems to be getting worse and worse. Last weekend and this weekend are Stowe’s busiest of the entire year. Like driving from Exit 10 in Waterbury to Stowe and the general area is almost impossible these weekends. It jacks up even on I-89 just to get off the exits. The Whites and I-93 seem similar from what I’ve seen. People go nuts for it… but there are colorful leaves everywhere. It is interesting to me that there are tons of NNE towns and roads with great foliage, but the people just keep pouring into the same areas. All that said, the mountain vistas are hard to beat with peak foliage. It can seem almost like a religious experience when timed right.

Yeah I think it’s a fine foliage weekend with the 3-day weekend… there’s plenty of great foliage in New England, you just gotta go to the right places. I know the Lake Placid, Stowe/Mad River Valley and Bretton Woods/MWN/Mt Washington Hotel and neighboring notches are often blasted with social media starting like 2-3 weeks ago. By the time folks see those photos it’s time to go like the next day, not in a couple weeks. I agree there’s a lag there that throws people off. If I was going this time of year maybe the Maine coast to like northern SNE or southern CNE (however you want to call it) would be the latitude band most likely to be peaking. Though to be honest, I have no idea how it is in Lakes Region and Monadnocks over to Berkshires right now. But if you are seeing good pics from a place two weeks before this weekend, it’s too late by now.

It’s the same every year. The holiday weekend is always too late. Dont get me wrong, there’s still color in the valleys but even the mountain valleys look like 50% sticks mixed with the left over oranges. Mountains have that past peak burnt orange look, still something but no where near the fire reds, yellows mixed with green from two weeks ago.

It’s felt chilly today despite low-50s. Something felt different, crisp chill in the shade. Then I saw dews are in the 20s and I wonder if that’s it. Think this is the first afternoon with dew points in the 20s up here this season.

It never fails. Past peak but peak traffic.

Oh 100%. It is what it is. We are lucky and can afford it, it’s just more than I’d like.

I’m so screwed this winter. Heat is needed almost every morning at this point even with a 62-63 set point.

31F with solid frost again. This weather on the holiday weekend, going to be a gong-show in the leaf peeping spots.

That was us last week, ha. Evaporational cooling is awesome.