Texas Falls
Waterfall · Hancock, Vermont
A series of plunges and potholes where Texas Brook drops through a narrow bedrock gorge in the Green Mountain National Forest at Hancock, a few minutes off Route 125 between the Route 100 corridor and Middlebury. A footbridge crosses the gorge directly above the falls, over what is left of a large glacial pothole, and a mile-and-a-bit nature trail loops through the woods along the brook to a picnic area. The whole thing was cut when the ice sheet melted about twelve thousand years ago and meltwater found the weak points in the rock. It is free, it is small, and it is one of the best five minutes' walk in Vermont.
Texas Falls Road, Hancock, Vermont, 05748, United States
FREE - a US Forest Service recreation area in the Green Mountain National Forest, with no fee and free parking. ⚠ THE CAR PARK IS SMALL AND FILLS on summer weekends and in the first half of October; go early. ⚠ THE ACCESS ROAD IS CLOSED IN WINTER, when the falls and the loop are reached on foot or snowshoes from further out. The footbridge over the gorge is a few steps from the parking area, and a 1.2-mile nature trail loop with about 70 feet of climb runs along Texas Brook to the picnic area and back. There is a large picnic pavilion. ⚠ SWIMMING AND WADING ARE PROHIBITED AND THE REASON IS SERIOUS: a narrow bedrock gorge with undercut walls, deep potholes and fast water over rock that is far more slippery than it looks, where a slip enters a chute you cannot climb out of. Stay behind the railings and on the bridge. ⚠ WATER RISES QUICKLY after heavy rain and in spring melt, which is when the falls are most spectacular and most dangerous; by late August the brook can be a trickle. Blackflies from late May into July are genuinely bad. No services and patchy mobile coverage.