Foliage Season Brought 2.5 Million Visitors To Vermont

Scenes like this in Underhill Vermont on October 17
drew 2.5 million leaf peepers to the not so Green
Mountain State this autumn.

If you live in Vermont and felt kinda crowded during October, there's a great reason why.  

A new report says 2.5 million leaf peepers roamed the state during the foliage season and left behind a cool $500 million in spending on lodging, restaurants, attractions and other related stuff, reports WPTZ

The numbers aren't final either. As of this weekend, there were still some straggling colorful leaves left over to add a little beauty to our increasingly stick season surroundings. That meant there were a few straggling tourists taking in the last of the foliage. 

WPTZ checked in with some individual businesses to see how they did, and their reporters got the same story state tourism officials were telling them. 

"It was the busiest we've ever seen; I mean, you can still see it's busy, and it just kept on going, we have seen record numbers, and it's amazing We love it," Andrew Tascarella, the floor manager at Shaw's General Store in Stowe told WPTZ. 

In the fall foliage mecca of Woodstock, Vermont, the local Chamber of Commerce said they've also had an incredibly busy autumn. 

It appears people were not deterred by the nationwide reports of severe flooding in the Green Mountain State this summer. While people are still certainly suffering in the destructive aftermath, almost all the state was patched up, repaired and ready for tourists.

The weather was certainly gorgeous in September and October, and that helped. It probably didn't influence people who came here from long distances, seeing how they probably made their travel arrangements well before weather forecasts blared the good news about the sunny skies.

Then again, the bright weather to match the bright foliage probably encouraged those tourists to explore and spend money, rather than holing up in their hotel rooms on cold rainy days.

The fantastic weather also probably encouraged spur of the moment day trippers to take a trip up here to Vermont, I imagine. 

The abnormally warm autumn, the nearly daily sunshine and placid weather kept those colorful leaves on the trees later in the season than they would have if we had our typically stormy, windy fall.  That kept the leaf peepers peeping in Vermont longer than in most years.

This is subjective, but I'd give the quality of this year's foliage a B+.  It wasn't the most brilliant display I can remember, as the bright reds were somewhat lacking. But it was still gorgeously colorful and the tourists definitely got their money's worth.  

The big outbreak of snoliage - colorful leaves with snow covered mountains - that hit mid month was certainly a huge bonus. 

We are now getting into the November quiet before ski season arrives. The bulk of the winter sports folks won't be here for a good month or more. They need snow after all. Much of northern Vermont will get teased by some snow showers tonight that could leave a dusting even in many valleys. 

But record high temperatures are forecast Wednesday and Thursday, so those skis and snowboards probably won't get much use quite yet.  

For those who somehow missed the Vermont fall foliage this summer, what follows is a couple videos I took:

A "snoliage" tour around Cambridge and Underhill, Vermont on October 17. Click on this link to view, or if you see the image below, click on that. 

Next, some driving around northwestern Vermont last week yielded these images. Again, click on this link to view or if you see the image below, click on that.