Green Mountain Club and Appalachian Trail Conservancy urge hikers not to use the Long Trail and Appalachian Trail while volunteers and staff assess damages to infrastructure after disastrous flooding earlier this week.
From Sunday through Monday, a rainstorm dropped more than 8 inches of precipitation on parts of the state, swelling waterways, flooding streets, and inundating some of the state’s best-loved trail mileage. Accuweather estimates that the storms caused damage of $3 to $5 billion. President Biden declared a federal state of emergency after one person died in Barre City. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), in a press release, called the storms the worst natural catastrophe to strike the state since 1927’s Great Vermont Flood, which claimed 84 lives.
Both the ATC (American Trails Council) and the GMC (Greater Manchester Council) issued statements urging hikers to leave the trail or go home as the flood waters rose.
“Flood waters brought catastrophic destruction to areas of New York and Vermont, and the condition of the Appalachian Trail in Vermont is unknown at this time,” the ATC wrote on its Facebook page on Tuesday. “Widespread road closures and washouts in Vermont may make accessing the Trail impossible in some…
