When is the best time to visit Vermont in fall foliage season?
When is Vermont peak foliage?
Where are the best places to stay in Vermont for fall foliage?
There's no best time to visit Vermont for fall foliage. The length of the state of Vermont is roughly 150 miles from southernmost Brattleboro to the Canadian Border. And elevations run from sea level at the Connecticut River border with New Hampshire to 4,393
feet at the height of Mount Mansfield. Temperatures tend to drop at higher elevations, and you would expect colder nighttime temperatures the further north you go ... Burlington, for example, is going to be colder than Brattleboro most days. Which means that foliage begins earlier in Burlington and the higher elevations of northern and central Vermont, and later in the southern portion of the state -- except, of course, for the Mount Snow area.
 .
Foliage season begins officially in September with apple picking. Macs, Cortlands, Delicious, Golden Delicious, Macouns, Greenings are the varieties that do best year in and year out in our Vermont autumn growing season. And beginning late September and into October, there are apple events ands apple fall festivals all over the state, culminating in Dummerston's Apple Days, which usually coincides with Columbus Day weekend. Which is not to say that color is synonymous with apples. Far from it. Maples, of course, provide the richest color, but so do birches, elm, sawtooth and other native deciduous trees.
Apples,
by the crate,
for pies,
and applesauce,
and for eating
right off the tree.
 And how do we know when fall foliage really over?
When the frost is on the pumpkin?
Or when the American wild turkey runs for cover? By the first weekend in November, and certainly by Veterans Day, foliage season is over ... and the turkey never want to be visible, shy as they are ... you would be, too, if you were on the menu for Thanksgiving Day (Vermont's organic turkey farms produce a superior bird, by the way) ... and by November, pretty much all the leaves are gone. A lot of Vermonters we know think the first weekend of November is the best weekend to be here ... weather's usually pretty good ... and the traffic's gone.
I remember you as you were that last autumn,
a grey beret, a stillness in your heart ...
Pablo Neruda
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