Vermont
One Year After the Flood: Working to Close Gaps for Vermont Farmers
The Green Mountain State is home to a quaint combination of vintage towns, agriculture, and public land for the outdoor recreator. The state’s tallest peak, Mount Mansfield, offers spectacular mountain views on your journey to the top, and the view from the summit is nothing short of magical. At the trail, natural beauty begins in the dappled light as you wander through northern hardwood forests. The scenic trail then rises through higher evergreen fir forests, until breaking through to rare alpine-tundra where 360-degree views of the state roll out beneath you. Once you’re in the alpine section of the mountain, be sure to only walk on the rocks to protect this fragile ecosystem.
Trails in Underhill State Park start at around 2,000 feet and take you up to Mount Mansfield’s summit of 4,395 feet. It’s one of the most scenic hiking experiences in New England, regardless of the season. Fall can make for soggy boots, but the maple, beech, and birch trees blanketing the mountain’s lower elevations are ablaze in autumn color from about mid-September to mid-October. A selection of hike-in campsites in the park makes for some great fall camping spots this time of year. For those seeking a blend of challenge, beauty, and solitude, heading up in winter provides a memorable experience — you might need snowshoes, skis, crampons, or poles depending on what route you take. Spring is known as mud season in the Northeast, though it can still be a stunning scene as the hardwood forests begin to show supple, bright green baby leaves while understory flowers break through the debris. Summer in Vermont is hard to beat, though, and it’s easily the best time of year to head to Mount Mansfield. Blitz up this peak, rinse off in one of the area’s swimming holes, and stop by a sugar shack for maple soft serve ice cream on your way through the nearby town of Stowe.
Trails to hike up Mount Mansfield
It’s always a good idea to plan and prepare properly for any day hike like this one. Mount Mansfield is a noodle bowl of trails, and you need to spend a few minutes before setting out deciding which one you’re going to attempt. The summit ridge runs north to south, and its ridgeline features resemble a person’s profile on their back (nose, chin, forehead, Adam’s apple). Vermont’s iconic state-long thru-hike, called the Long Trail, traverses the summit ridge. If you start at the Lower Barnes Lot, you can hike the Long Trail to the Adam’s apple and across the ridgeline, then descend via the Hazleton Trail for a hike that totals 7.8 miles.
Approaching through Underhill State Park, on the mountain’s western side, is ideal because it’s the more remote and undeveloped side. Several classic routes lead toward the summit ridge, including the Sunset Ridge Trail, a 3-mile approach that offers a steady climb and some of the best open ridgeline views in the state. Others take the Laura Cowles Trail, a steeper and shadier route that ascends through moss-covered forest and meets the ridge above the treeline. Looped together, these trails create a perfect 4.5-mile blend of demanding hiking and tranquil scenery.
Whichever trail you take, the ultimate reward of hiking Mt. Mansfield via Underhill is the moment you break through the treeline, where the summit ridge opens into sweeping views. Lake Champlain lies to the west, the Green Mountains continue to the north and south, and on clear days, even the White Mountains of New Hampshire peek out over the horizon. Returning via the Sunset Ridge Trail offers regular vistas of the valley below, aglow with sunset colors if timed right. It’s a nice distraction from your burning thighs and achy feet.
MONTPELIER — Vermont officials are building a case to appeal President Donald Trump’s rejection of a state request for federal disaster aid that would help a number of Caledonia and Essex county towns foot the bills from major flooding this past July.
Gov. Phil Scott made the request for a major disaster declaration in August. If approved, it would have unlocked Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to help municipalities cover the costs of repairing critical infrastructure and starting new projects to halt the risk of future flooding, among other possible expenses.
The state’s application cited about $1.8 million in damages, which is more than the $1.2 million threshold states need to meet to qualify for a federal disaster declaration.
July’s flooding marked the third year in a row that Vermont communities suffered damage from major storms. The state successfully obtained disaster declarations from the White House after flooding in 2023 and 2024. Both those years, it also applied for — and received — funding for individual assistance from FEMA. For 2025, Gov. Scott did not request individual assistance, which has different damage cost requirements.
On Thursday, Doug Farnham, Vermont’s chief recovery officer, told legislators the state has since determined the actual cost of July’s damage could be closer to $4 million, or about twice that earlier estimate. That’s largely due to greater than expected costs for rebuilding infrastructure in the Caledonia County town of Sutton, he said.
Sutton was seemingly the hardest hit of any town by this summer’s flooding, which came after the town spent millions of dollars recovering from the flooding in the two years before.
Farnham told the Legislature’s Joint Fiscal Committee that state officials had been working with local leaders on how to bolster the state’s case in an appeal — “essentially, frame our argument a little bit more strongly,” he said.
Trump rejected Vermont’s application for FEMA assistance in late October. Vermont has until Nov. 21 to decide whether it will appeal that decision, according to Farnham.
Gov. Scott, who ultimately has to make that call, told reporters at a press conference later Thursday that he initially was not planning to push back on the White House’s denial, but suggested the information about higher costs had changed his mind.
“We are working on something right now to appeal the decision based on the increased dollar amount,” the governor said.
Trump’s decision to reject Vermont’s aid request came on the same day he denied similar asks from other largely Democratic states including Illinois and Maryland. At the same time, he approved declarations for the largely Republican states of Alaska, Nebraska and North Dakota. He also approved a request from the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota.
The decision in Maryland was a rejection of an appeal, the same mechanism Vermont is now considering. Trump wrote on social media the same day that he had “won BIG” in Alaska in the last three presidential elections, according to the Associated Press.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson called the federal government’s response “non-political” in a response to VTDigger last month. The spokesperson said the federal government had found that the damage in Vermont “was not of such severity and magnitude as to be beyond the capabilities of the state and affected local governments to recover.”
Also during Thursday’s Joint Fiscal Committee hearing, legislators questioned Farnham over reporting last month in Grist that described shortcomings in how the state used and oversaw a $2.9 million grant to help victims of the state’s 2024 flooding navigate FEMA applications and access other resources.
The story, which was also published in VTDigger, described how that work faced high upfront costs and how a substantial amount of the grant money was used to pay bills from a multinational consulting company, Guidehouse.
“How much money was — maybe, wasted isn’t the right word — was an unnecessary use of funds before this got figured out?” asked Rep. Robin Scheu, D-Middlebury, who chairs the state budget-writing House Appropriations Committee.
“Zero dollars, representative,” Farnham replied. “It was all necessary administrative work. It was building the systems, training everyone, putting everything together.”
Farnham added that he did not dispute facts in the story but contended that its narrative was “framed as negatively as you could” toward the state.
This story was republished with permission from VtDigger, which offers its reporting at no cost to local news organizations through its Community News Sharing Project. To learn more, visit vtdigger.org/community-news-sharing-project.
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