Mt. Equinox Summit & Vistas
The highest peak in the Taconics, by the longest privately owned road in America
- Duration
- 3 hours
- Group size
- Up to 4 guests per Jeep
- Availability
- May through October, weather permitting
The idea
Our namesake mountain, and still the best two hours in Southern Vermont. The Skyline Drive climbs 3,248 feet through five distinct forest zones to a summit with views across the Green Mountains, the Adirondacks, the Berkshires and on clear days into New Hampshire. We add three more overlooks on the way back down that almost nobody stops for.
The Skyline Drive is 5.2 miles of switchbacks up the mountain that gave this company its name, and the ecology changes as you climb — hardwood to mixed to boreal spruce-fir in the space of twenty minutes, which is the same transition you would drive four hundred miles north to see. We stop on the way up to point it out.
The summit itself looks over four states and a Carthusian monastery, and the light in the last hour before sunset turns the whole valley gold. On the descent we take the long way home through three roadside vistas and a dirt-road overlook that gets you the Batten Kill valley without a single other car in the frame.
Highlights
- A four-state view from 3,848 feet
- Five forest zones in twenty minutes of climbing
- Sunset departures with alpenglow on the Greens
- Hidden dirt-road overlooks on the way down
Good to know
- The Skyline Drive closes seasonally and in bad weather; we will reschedule free of charge.
- It is reliably ten to fifteen degrees colder on the summit. Bring a layer.
- Sunset slots are the most popular and the most worth it.
Pairs well with
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