I checked my watch as I headed off the back deck – 9:27. Today I would find the much heralded, but to Peg and me the undiscoverable, Tunnel of Love. A slight mist/rain began to fall about 15 minutes later, but I would not be deterred.
We first heard of the Tunnel of Love last Thursday when we crossed paths with neighbor Brett as we started our morning walk. He was on the way home with his dog, Buddy Roo (who had not one, but two sticks in his mouth – the dog picks a stick each morning for his walk and never lets it go – that morning the stick had broken in two). We chatted for a few minutes about winter coming on, cross country skiing, and Brett told us about the Tunnel of Love trail. As he described it, one end came out of the woods at one of the fields near our farm on the west side of Savage Hill, and the other on George’s farm on the east side.
Friday morning, after moving and feeding the flock, we decided to venture off along the west fields to find the entrance. It had snowed a little the night before, but not enough to prohibit walking in the fields and woods. We headed along the edges of three fields, which we think belong to neighbor Gregg. We reached the far corner of the third field and hadn’t seen anything that looked like a path into the woods. Frustrated, we crossed the field below Gregg’s house, got to Jericho Street, and walked home.
Saturday morning – let’s try again. There had been one section of the west fields we hadn’t checked on the previous outing – it was actually closer to home. We agreed to look there. Bingo! After only a few minutes we found something that looked like a path heading up the hill to the south and east. We ventured into the woods. That path petered out after awhile, up close to what we think is the top of Savage Hill. We felt pretty good about our bearings, and bushwhacked mostly to the east. Soon, the trees thinned out and we were in a sugar bush, with blue and black sap lines running between trees. We made our way downhill and found ourselves above George’s house and the sugar shack for his syrup business – Scattered Maples (I love that name).
As we walked down Miller Road heading back for home, another neighbor called out asking if we were the “new folks”. We stopped to introduce ourselves to another George and his 15-month-old poodle Oscar. We had a nice brief chat. When Peg asked George, “Have you been here long?”, he got a funny expression on his face, and replied something like, “here in Vermont, if you’ve been here 7 generations you’re still a flatlander.”
We got on to talking about mountain biking, cross-country skiing, and George asked if we’d been on the Tunnel of Love. We explained we’ve been looking for it, but couldn’t seem to find it. He suggested the easiest way is from the east side on George’s farm. Go down the hill past his farmhouse on the road, and look up to the right for the trail. Seemed easy enough.
Sunday – no explorations.
Monday morning, I asked Peg if she were up to another stab at the Tunnel. It was 8:15 and she needed to be back for a 9:30 conference call. Based on where the two ends of the Tunnel had been described to us, I didn’t think it would be a very long walk. I assured her we would be back in time.
Up Miller Road, past George’s house, and down the path over the hill. Shortly, we came to a fork. One path kept going downhill, the other led towards the sugar shack, which looked like it had a hillside field beyond. I thought we should go to the right and look up in that field. Peg thought we should stay to left and go down the hill. Left it was.
When we got down to the end of the road, we saw the remains of an old school bus, and what looked like the end of George’s property. We had to cross over some barbed wire fencing (which wasn’t that hard) and we saw a path continue on past the fence. Shortly after, we thought it went up the hill to the left, but that petered out. Backtracking, we saw that it continued on down the hill, and we followed it. Maybe ten minutes later, we came out at the top of a field with some pretty broad views. We could see I-89 in the distance, which meant we were looking south. Hmmm. We’d been told the Tunnel came out on the west side of Savage Hill.
We walked down the field and came to a road heading straight downhill. Some mailboxes had the name “Runnals” on them. That name rang a bell to me. We started walked down the road, and I posited to Peg that we would probably come out on VT Route 14 along the White River, and we would have to walk along 14 to either Jericho Road or Jericho Street to head back home. Peg, being on top of things, suggested maybe the shortest way back was to back track, but she didn’t think she could remember how we came. I said I could and looked at my watch – 8:52. I thought we could make it.
(Later in the day, in the car coming back from errands, I headed along Route 14 and found Runnals Road heading up the hill. If we had walked down the road and along 14, we would NEVER have made it back in time.)
So, back up the hill and across the field to where we came out. I remarked to Peg I forgot that most of the path so far had been downhill, so the breathing got a little heavier. At one point on the way back the trail forked, and Peg correctly kept us on the path to the right. I hadn’t even seen the path heading off to the left the first time through.
We got back @ 9:25. A good long walk, but definitely not the Tunnel of Love. Peg told me we had been on part of the Tunnel trail. I told Peg I would find it while she was gone this week. She told me to take my phone.
So today I decided to head back out into the west fields again and SEARCH HARDER for the trail outlet. First I walked through our own section of woods to come out to the lower side of our west fields. Then I headed south along the tree line, essentially covering all the same territory Peg and I had tried on our first two attempts.
When I got to the far corner of the third field, where Peg and I had quit and headed back across the field to get to Jericho Street, I decided to keep along the edge, even though I was now moving to the west AWAY from George’s farm on the other side of the hill.
All of Gregg’s fields are fenced in by barbed wire strands strung between posts. Both the posts and wires are mixes of old and new. Here and there along the way there had been a few openings, but none looked like they fed into a trail. But shortly after I made the turn at the far corner, I saw a post that looked different from the others. It had some old ragged plastic sheeting nailed to it – white on one side, black on the other. This made the post stand out from a distance. As I examined it, it kind of looked like a gate, but I couldn’t figure out how to make it open.
Not sure I had found anything, I turned my gaze into the woods. There definitely seemed to be a path on the other side. Looking a little closer, maybe 5 yards in from the fence, I saw around 15 tree limbs about 8 to ten feet long, lying side-by-side on the ground, sort of like a small bridge. THAT, MY FRIEND, IS A PATH.
I got myself over the fence (which at the “gate” is both wire mesh and barbed, with the mesh sort of protecting you from the barb when you step across) and headed up the path. A little ways up, it looked like it diverged, and I decided to go to the right, probably in a southeasterly direction. Around here, the path started going down.
Feeling pretty confident I had finally found it, a little farther along, I looked up to the left side of the path and saw the back of a sign nailed to a tree about seven feet above the ground.
About ten yards farther along…
And another ten yards…
Well, what do you know. I kept going down for a few minutes past the sign, and came onto…
Peg and I HAD been on the Tunnel trail on Monday, we just didn’t look up to the right at the school bus. Here, the same fence blocked the path, and I decided to back track rather than finish the loop. It was still raining a bit, and the trees provided cover.
Walking back up the Tunnel, I looked back down the hill to see why it might have gotten its name…
When I got to the split in the path, this time I went the other direction (I could see the field I had started in through the trees down the hill). That led me to this…
That path kind of petered out. I could have bushwhacked down to the left to rejoin the path and come back to the “gate”, but I decided to bushwhack along the fence to north for a bit, before I found a spot to cross the fence back into the field.
By this time the rain had stopped. The gray morning continued, and the grass was wet, but it wasn’t too cold.
Coming back to our field and getting close to the double gate at the bottom of the west field, I realized my feet were pretty wet. Peg would kill me if I tell her I want another new pair of boots.
Back on the screen porch taking off my wet boots at 10:16. Mission Accomplished!
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Todd