6 Covered Bridges in a Day Part 1
When autumn arrives…
I will tell those who will listen, “limit your plans for that day”, “Put a couple of events on the autumn schedule and you will still get the fall foliage”, “Don’t spend the entire day from sun-up to sun-down driving in search of fall foliage colors”. 🙂
In other words, don’t do what I do. I usually will leave Salem early at 3 AM and get up into the North Country and begin looking for the best color. If I have Lisa with me I plan differently because she doesn’t want to drive for hours without getting out of the car she wants to see sights and things we haven’t seen.
These times are usually when I find my best photos. On the one hand, it’s because I don’t just have fall colors; I will usually have a covered bridge or maybe a small village to explore.
This article covers one day, 10 October 2014. I was working full time and Thursday/Friday was my weekend, so we hit the road after Lisa left work on Thursday and we drove to Lebanon NH. On Friday morning my first shot of the day was 0658 hours and the last was 1747 hours. (6:58 AM to 5:47 PM for non-military types)
This did not end my day; I still had to drive from Historic Deerfield Massachusetts to Salem (2 hours or so). This breaks so many of my rules that I can’t even begin to count them all, the biggest is safety.
That is over 12 hours on the road driving and I was dangerously tired by the time I was trying to navigate my way into Deerfield and I had a long way to get home. I also had to be up and at work in the morning at my National Park Ranger job.
Starting the day at the Jenne Farm (6:58 AM)
We got to the Jenne Farm around 0645 and I got in line. You see, dawn is the time that the classic shot happens that all photographers want to capture. As I already have an article written on the Jenne Farm please click and you can see my shots of the fantastic dawn there. We only stayed until 0740 and we hit the road in search of covered bridges. Lisa had the Vermont Gazetteer out and was plotting our course.
The Bests & Bowers covered bridges (8:14 AM)
The Bests and Bowers Covered Bridge became our next objective. The Bests Covered Bridge is just off Route 44 on Churchill Road and we then proceeded to the Bowers Bridge on Bible Hill Road.
The Bowers Covered Bridge was probably renovated in either 2013 or early 2014 as the wood hasn’t faded to a grey patina that I like to see in my covered bridges. (It probably has aged a little since then)
In fact, as I walked down the long Mill Brook I found a piece of wood that appeared to have come from the covered bridge during the last repair/renovation from Hurricane Irene.
Cornish Windsor Covered Bridge (8:50 AM)
The Cornish Windsor Covered Bridge stretches across the Connecticut River between Windsor Vermont and Cornish New Hampshire.
This is the longest covered bridge in New England at almost 450 feet in total length. I think the preferred view of this covered bridge is from the New Hampshire side and up the road a little way to the North on 12A with Mount Ascutney rising majestically in the distance.
My images were taken around 9:30 in the morning and I’ve seen really good shots in the afternoon from about the same position, so no matter when you get here you should get a good shot.
The Dingleton Hill Covered Bridge (9:51 AM)
a few minutes away from the Cornish Windsor bridge is the Dingleton Hill covered bridge. Just head South on 12A and shortly you’ll see 12A break off from Townhouse Road. Follow that to the top of the hill and find the Dingleton Hill Covered Bridge on the right-hand side. [Total distance 1.3 miles from last stop]
The Dingleton Hill Covered Bridge is also known as the Cornish Mills Bridge. It was built by James Tasker of Cornish New Hampshire around 1802. The sides are open with vertical boards and have a gabled roof of either red-painted wood or rusty metal (hard to tell).
Do not be in a hurry to photograph this covered bridge! I only took a few pictures myself, and I just noticed online that going through the covered bridge onto the adjoining road and looking back makes for an excellent view of this covered bridge, catching both the opening and the side of the covered bridge.
This takes us up to 10 AM and we still have the rest of the day to go…
Here is a link to Part 2 of this trip and from there you can go to Part 3. I did say… it was a long day!
If you have any questions about the places that I’ve mentioned today, let me know.
Jeff Foliage Folger
Autumn is a state of mind more than a time of year – Jeff Foliage
- Visit my Fine Art America Gallery
- Visit my Amazon store to pick up New England-related materials
- Visit my Pictorem Gallery (Free shipping in the US and Canada)
- My Facebook foliage page
- Threads.net/@Jeff_Foliage
- Follow our new Fall Foliage FB Group!
- You can visit Lisa’s Artist Facebook Page by clicking here
My husband and I search out the cover bridges when visiting New England. We don’t see many of them in the North West. Thanks for the pictures.
Hi Danni, I’m glad I was able to help. I have a lot of covered bridges photographed and I’m working on PDF maps that you can download for your next trip!