Leaf Peeper - noun:Slow-moving, wide-eyed tourists from major cities or other states who flock to Vermont in the fall for the primary purpose of taking in the scenery, blocking traffic to take Instagram-ready photos, and waiting in lines of their own conception for an elusive Creemee. Trust me, it’s not just a soft serve.

Escaping Whistler for...Vermont?

Unless you’re based in New York or Boston and follow pumpkin-spice-tok or have an unhealthy obsession with barn architecture and culture in the US, Vermont might not be on your radar as an all-time fall-time travel destination. The place is best known for Ben and Jerry’s, and Bernie Sanders mightn’t strike you as a bucket list location for a mountain bike trip when you already live in Whistler. However, just as the temperatures dropped and the PNW rain returned last October, I packed my bags and headed to the Green Mountain State.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, early October is peak tourist season in Vermont. Many of the local business owners describe it as ‘their Super Bowl’, where sweaters fly off shelves, delicious farm-to-table food and ice cream can’t get made fast enough, and fashion-clad hash-taggers line up to take Pinterest-inspired photos with idyllic red barns and landscapes draped in technicolour foliage.

While the Peepers may crowd well-known areas, causing previously incomprehensible traffic jams and making it impossible to go out for food without a reservation, they also help considerably to prop up the tourism component of the Vermont economy at a time when most other seasonal tourist hotspots are experiencing their own shoulder seasons. The locals, as with any tourist-centric economy, roll their eyes, but in the same vein, are deeply aware that the presence of these Leaf Peepers is vital to their livelihoods and communities.

Although New Englanders are generalized as having pointed and abrasively direct personalities, almost everyone I met in Vermont was warm and welcoming; throughout my time there, conversation always felt like a warm hug. I wouldn’t even put it down to the weather, it being the coziest time of the year, or the fiery foliage. The people are genuinely nice, interested, and keen to have you there. They’re just as enthused about the outdoors as you are, and often understand, appreciate, and may even share the passion and drive that allows us to do what we do.

Hidden Gems: Vermont's Best MTB Trails

While I primarily rode bikes in central Vermont, a combination of recent trail construction and investment, coupled with a wide variety of terrain, geology, and build language, meant a wide chronological variety within the trails that’s very rarely seen in such a small area. Smaller-town trails, such as most of those found in the Mad River Valley or some of the older trails at Perry Hill, are delineated by hand-built singletrack with flat corners, small kickers, and natural root balls and rock gardens. A plethora of rugged, raw features create a unique jank, where roots and rocks weren’t removed to assist your flow but instead serve to detract from it. Speed was harder to find, but far and away more rewarding once you had it.

This is contrasted by more modern trailheads, such as "The Driving Range," which was designed with Adaptive MTB access in mind. Boasting well-built tabletops, rollers, sizable gap jumps, tall-walled berms, and even steep rock slabs, the trail's width and navigation are focused on accessibility. This is best embodied by "Hot Dogger", a complete take on a modern flow trail. It’s got something to keep everyone happy, with tabletops, optional gap jumps, and tall, trusting berms. However, "Lower Hot Dogger" is where the party really kicks off - a much more recent build, it reminds me of something partway between Crank it Up and A-Line in Whistler, though lo and behold, without any of the braking bumps given the reduced traffic. Progressive tables, optionally larger hip jumps, rollers, and lofty, trustworthy berms made this trail a real hoot. Relatively large jumps for a trail centre, yet predictable enough to trust in a first run-through, this was modern trail building at its best. I couldn’t recommend it enough.

There’s even the in-between; for example, the trail “Visceral” at Cochran’s, Richmond. Opened in 2016, it felt like a halfway house between old-school jank and new-school flow, ideally crafted around the zeitgeist of the up-and-coming discipline of Enduro, and subsequent bikes. Off-camber sections with little kickers, steeper rock rolls, flowy berms, and smaller mandatory drops marked a time when trail bike geometry was progressing into more aggressive forms. On a modern bike, it turns into a seriously fun trail, where racing and riding down it become one and the same.

The Green Mountain State isn’t known as a place with staggering peaks and long descents, but trail builders’ ingenuity often makes you forget this. Brake-burning descents are few and far between, but the available terrain is generally used wisely. I very rarely felt like a trail was too flat, but at the same time, elevation was never wasted. Every trail had its own personality, and a good time was to be had on everything I rode.

By coincidence, I spent a large portion of my trip based in the Mad River Valley, known by Vermonters as ‘The Valley’. Straddled between the peaks of Camel’s Hump State Park and Roxbury State Forest, Mad River Valley is most commonly known for its two ski resorts in the winter: Sugarbush to the south, and Mad River Glen to the north. Mad River Glen is noteworthy for a couple of reasons: you need two planks to get on the lift (read: no snowboarders), and it’s got one of the few remaining operational single-chairs, for introverted skiers. It seems this kind of no-nonsense hardcore outdoor culture is embodied by many within Mad River Valley, creating a determined, hard-working outdoorspeople passionately committed to their pursuits.

Mountain biking and life in general in Mad River Valley felt like a microcosm of Vermont as a whole. The people were always welcoming and down-to-earth; there was an abundance of authentic, locally sourced food and world-class coffee, and a well-balanced blend of old-school and modern trail styles. The people are generally like-minded and outdoorsy - being on the doorstep of 600 acres of lift-access skiing and snowboarding will usually do that, along with the Mad River Valley itself being the most popular stretch of whitewater for kayaking in the summer. The Mad River Valley, given its proximity to two iconic ski fields and the people who live there, boasted some of the first mountain bike trails in Vermont, with mountain bike trail development beginning in the late 1980s. Some of this unique and historic old-school feel can still be experienced today, where the trail layout often feels like it is built and developed over time, instead of planned in an orderly manner.

Trail Progress and Growth in Vermont

Much like the rest of Vermont, trail development is often hindered by a convoluted blend of competing interests, small-town intergenerational grudges, and a complex land management situation. Many of the trails are accessed by or built on privately owned land, with the easement and trails themselves at the benevolence and occasional mercy of local landowners. Because of this, trail development isn’t straightforward, even when investment and resources become available. In 2022, the Mad River Chamber of Commerce received a $400,000 grant to improve recreational access, much of which they spent on a bridge to connect the Dana Hill trails to downtown Waitsfield and the creation of a Central Trail Hub, including an Information Centre, expanded parking, and toilet facilities, proving their commitment to improving mountain biking infrastructure within the Valley. It’s one thing to have a local trail association, but when the towns’ conjoined Chamber of Commerce invests anywhere near that kind of money, their investment and interest in the future of mountain biking as a viable component of the local economy is well and truly validated.

The Mad River Riders are a local trail advocacy group that was founded in 1986 and is now a chapter of the wider Vermont Mountain Bike Association. They fund a seasonal dig team to keep trails fresh throughout the summer, and I was fortunate enough to ride "Evolution," one of Dana Hills’ signature flow trails, not long after they’d come through for a rejuvenation. The work they’re doing is wicked and well-appreciated; short but steep berms made traction inevitable, and only served to rocket you into the next. Considering the gradient of the trail isn’t the steepest, it made maintaining speed a breeze, doing wonders for the ego when you lean your bike into a corner only to be met with unfailing traction and the magnificent feeling of dirt spraying off your tyres. It seems that despite the land access hurdles, there’s ample investment, care, and craftsmanship oozing from Mad River Valley, which made me super optimistic, knowing the best is yet to come for the quaint collection of towns along the river.

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Given the time of year, I happily fled the flocks of people looking for the perfect tree, barn, or landscape to admire and photograph, and spent most of my time in the woods, searching for some leaf-surfing action. I had grand visions of trails strewn with fallen foliage, akin to that one segment from Return to Earth, leaving leaf-filled carnage in my wake where once there was uniform beauty. The problem with this is that a major prerequisite for roosting berms and pulling for gaps is that you actually need to be able to see the trail.

As it turns out, if you opt for a relatively untreaded trail, of which there are plenty in Mad River Valley, all you can see are millions of leaves, in every direction. You can guess where the vague outline of the trail is; you might catch a hint of a bench-cut side somewhere, or a slight depression in the fiery deciduous understory. But this is all guesswork, and the remaining obstacles are submerged beneath, poised to catch you out at the wrong moment.

At the time I made the comment that there’s nothing better for making your bike feel terrible than running into every single root and rock on a trail - and while I was right, I also couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. In some ways, it’s a feeling similar to first tracks on a powder day: a blank canvas waiting for you to carve through it at speed. Difficult though it may be, there’s a certain satisfaction that plays out - maybe it’s human nature to enjoy ruining nature’s blank canvas with our own expression. But perhaps it’s something as simple as that childhood feeling of jumping and skidding through leaves, even when it’s somewhere as mundane as our own backyards.

Not all trails were like this, mind you – the more densely-traveled ones, such as Evolution on Dana Hill and Lower Woods Downhill in Sugarbush, were almost more distinctive. Instead of a blank canvas, there was only a snaking ribbon of trail in a sea of leaves. Sometimes just a berm, sometimes a series of rollers, sometimes a runway into a little kicker; the contrast lit the way forward, and made Strava lines a game of roulette. Whichever side of the spectrum the trails sat, the leaves made for a picturesque addition to some seriously fun and varied trails.

Mad River Valley: Avoid the Crowds, Enjoy the Trails

Mountain bike-related tourism in Vermont typically conjures names such as Killington, Burke, Woodstock, and Kingdom Trails, but smaller communities like the Mad River Valley shouldn’t be overlooked. Future-focused and poised for more trail development, these few quaint towns are not only welcoming, but have some of the best variety of trails right on their doorstep - and a lot more to offer than a resort-style holiday. Earning your turns is one thing, but getting involved in a local community, buying local food, and meeting people who’ve lived there for generations, yet have the exact same drive for their outdoor passions as you, is really a priceless way to travel.

By the time my holiday was up, the feeling in Vermont had changed. The weather had turned precipitous and cold, and the rolling auburn hills had started to fade in intensity, with many bare branches showing their trunks. The locals observantly call it ‘stick season’, replacing warm temperatures and eye-melting technicolor landscapes with a cold, monochrome vibe in a rapid metamorphosis.

Under a strangely regular, and apparently very Vermont-esque, blazing dusk, I packed my bike into its bag, ready for a flight the next day. I’d come not expecting a lot and was quietly blown away by almost every aspect of Vermont. The variety and breadth of the trails, the majestic multicoloured scenery, the authentic food and living, and the welcoming, hardworking, and future-driven people who value their natural paradise as a space of recreation. It’s a place that wasn’t high on my bucket list, but it blew me away and reminded me of a simple truth: that the best experiences you have on a mountain bike often aren’t formed by the terrain, but by the people and communities that shape them.