UNDERHILL, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont’s untimely end to winter has been accompanied by the early arrival of another season all too familiar to folks across the state — mud season.
Vermont’s unofficial fifth season has come several weeks earlier than usual. Folks we spoke with in Underhill Tuesday say while road conditions so far aren’t as bad as previous seasons, they’re worried rain this week could change that.
“We don’t get this kind of mud until later on in the spring so I’m just wondering what the rest of the spring is going to bring us,” said John Fifield, who along with his wife Devana, has lived in Underhill for decades. The couple say the mud doesn’t scare them.
“We just have to slow down, give ourselves a little extra time to get to town,” Devana said.
“The road crew has done a lot of work to try to fix the underneath part of the road and it’s helping, but we still have some horrific mud patches that are pretty rough on a suspension,” added John.
Underhill Highway Supervisor Russ Clark says they’ve been lucky so far. “Mud season for Underhill has been very light. I would say we’ve had a few sections that are pretty muddy but other than that, we haven’t had a bad mud season. We have a lot of bumps and a few ruts here and there but overall we’ve been pretty lucky so far,” he said.
Other residents agree. “It’s not too bad. Something you learn to live with, but it is a challenge especially come spring. You’ll have a lot of ridges and ruts on the road that you’ll have to ride,” said Dylan Hadden. “The best thing you can do is have a good set of tires on your vehicle, have an all-wheel drive vehicle like a Subaru that you see often — there’s a reason for it.”
Clark says they do what they can to make sure people are safe. “We do have a stockpile of rocks that we use to put in mud and gravel on the other portion. But if it’s wet, we still don’t usually put anything down because we’re gonna make more mud,” he said.