Type vermont fall weekend itinerary into a search engine and you’ll get the same recycled list every site runs. We’ve watched foliage season roll through the Mad River Valley since 1949, so we built a weekend around the spots we actually send guests to — a market, a lift ride over the color, three covered bridges, and one home base to come back to each night.
Friday: Settle In
Aim for a late-afternoon arrival. Mt. Ellen and Lincoln Peak start turning early in the season, so the drive up Route 100 into Waitsfield is worth it on its own. Check into your room, then head into the Tavern for a drink before dinner. Ask for a table on the deck if the evening’s warm enough — it looks out over the pond and the hillside behind it, which by late September is already showing color. Dinner is New American cooking built around fresh, locally sourced ingredients, served until 10 PM, so there’s no need to rush the drive up from wherever you’re coming from.
Traveling with a dog? Four of our rooms — the Hyde Away House, the Fireplace Room, and the Porch Rooms M2 and M3 — have private outdoor entrances built for exactly this kind of trip.
Saturday Morning: The Farmers Market on the Mad River Green
Saturdays, 9 AM to 1 PM, the Waitsfield Farmers Market on Mad River Green just off Route 100, running through October 17 this year. It’s a small market — produce, baked goods, jam and cheese, local crafts, and a food stall or two. Buy something you can’t get at home and bring it back to the room for later.
Saturday Afternoon: The Foliage Lift at Mad River Glen
Mad River Glen fires up its Single Chair — one of only two single-chair lifts still running in the country — for foliage rides on select weekends each fall, typically late September through mid-October, Saturdays and Sundays only, 10 AM to 2:30 PM. The round trip takes about 40 minutes and there’s no online ticketing, so buy at the window when you arrive. If the dates don’t line up with your stay, or you’d rather keep your feet on the ground, the Mad River Path is a flat, easy walk along the river through Waitsfield that gives you plenty of color without a lift ticket. If you want the full rundown of Valley trails, including the climbs up Burnt Rock and Camel’s Hump, we’ve written a separate guide to that — save it for a trip when you’ve got more daylight to burn.
Saturday Night: Back to the Tavern
Come back for dinner and stay for the bar afterward. The Tavern pours a rotating list of Vermont craft beer, and the sloped floors and low light make it an easy place to sit for a couple of hours after a day spent outside. Ask your server what’s new on tap since the summer menu.
Sunday: The Covered Bridge Loop
After checkout, drive the covered bridge loop that starts a short drive from the inn. Head into Waitsfield Village first for the Great Eddy Bridge — built in 1833, still carrying traffic, and one of the oldest covered bridges in the state. From there, wind up North Road to the 1872 Pine Brook Bridge, smaller and easy to miss, which is exactly why it’s worth the detour. Finish by heading south on East Warren Road into Warren Village, where the Warren Bridge crosses the Mad River a short walk from the Warren Store. Get lunch there before the drive home. The full loop runs about 19 miles and takes half a day if you stop to walk each bridge instead of just photographing it from the car window.
Book Your Weekend
Foliage weekends fill up, and the closer you get to peak color in early-to-mid October, the fewer rooms are left. Book your stay at Hyde Away and treat this itinerary as a starting point, not a script. Push Sunday’s drive earlier if you want more time at the market Saturday, or skip the lift and swap in a second round at the Tavern instead. Either way, you’re never more than a few minutes from the inn all weekend.
