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?
 The best time to visit Vermont for fall foliage depends on elevation, latitude and late summer temperatures. The state of Vermont is roughly 150 miles from southernmost Brattleboro to the Canadian border. Elevations are sea level at the Connecticut River to 4,393 feet at the Mount Mansfield peak. Temperatures drop at higher elevations, so expect colder night temperatures the further north you go ...
Burlington,
for example, will be colder than Brattleboro most evenings. Which means foliage begins
 earlier in Burlington and the higher elevations of northern and central Vermont, and later in the south Vermont -- 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 and apple fall festivals all over the state, culminating in
Dummerston's Apple Days, which usually coincides with
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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.
Another way of looking at this is: fall begins when summer ends. In Vermont, summer ends with the Vermont State Fair beginning early September in Rutland VT.
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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?
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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.
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I remember you as you were that last autumn,
a grey beret, a stillness in your heart ...
Pablo Neruda
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