Distance: Varies due to several trails
Difficulty: Moderate
When you are scrolling through social media do you ever see posts on places you should visit. I often see them and save them in case I need ideas of day trips. There has been one place I have wanted to visit for a while and on a recent trip to Vermont we finally were able to stop.
Taconic Mountains Ramble is a small state park near Castleton, Vermont. This is an undeveloped park with no facilities or staff stationed there. The day we visited there was a porta-potty, but I am unsure if there is always one there. There are several miles of hiking trails with beautiful views of Western Vermont.
The main reason that I was drawn to this park is because it is advertised as a Japanese Garden. I love a good garden and place to relax so I was very excited it check it out. When I was reading reviews about getting to the gardens it was reported that is is very steep terrain. I was little nervous about what we were getting into, but figured I we would give it a try.
The state park was a little difficult to find. It is located on St. John Road, which you can access from Rt 30 in Hubbardton by taking Monument Hill Road to Woods Road. We also followed the signs for Mt. Zion. There is a couple parking lots, but you want to go to the one at the end of the dirt road. From here there is a small kiosk and a couple places to sit to enjoy the views.
There is a small home that also has additional information on a bulletin board. There are several trails from this parking lot. Our focus was to see the Japanese Garden.
To get to the garden you walk past the house to a path that has my favorite sign.
Then down a steep grass embankment. It is only about a quarter of a mile to the garden. The garden is smaller than I expected, but it was still worth the trip.
There are seats around the garden and places to spread out for a picnic. There are some water features, a ladder to climb up on a rock and a chair, ponds with turtles and frogs and other sculptures.
i could have sat her all day. When you have an active ten year old you do not get much opportunity for down time. We spent about 20 minutes enjoying the garden.
We took the Spring Trail back to the parking lot which was between a quarter of a mile and half mile. Since we have not had a lot of rain this year there was nothing in the streams, but my guess is when there is, they are beautiful.
We did not explore a lot of the trails, but my guess is they are moderate too hard. There are some beautiful views in this area. I highly recommend checking out Taconic Mountains Ramble if you are in the area.
If you want more information on the history of the area check out the Vermont State Park Website.
