Thundering Brook Falls

From the junction of Route 7 and 4 in Rutland, take Route 4 east for 11.2 miles to Thundering Brook Road and turn north. Follow Thundering Brook Road along the edge of Kent Pond and then steeply down hill to the bridge over Thundering Brook in 1.3 miles and park. Find where the blue blaze marked trail descends down the hill on the south side of Thundering Brook and follow steeply downstream to the various vistas of the falls and finally to a viewing deck at the base of the falls, just off of the Appalachian Trail. To view the upper tiers of the falls, some steep off-trail scrambling along the side of the falls is required.Thundering Brook produces a rather impressive series of falls and cascades where the outlet of Kent Pond cascades 133 feet in four distinct sections as it descends to meet the Ottaquechee River in the valley below, with the Appalachian Trail following the falls down the hill. The falls start off with a 35-foot sliding horsetail type fall, which immediately leads into a stairstep 12-foot cascade where the bedrock has formed two small natural dams of sorts. The fourth drop sees the creek split into two channels and slide 18 feet in side-by-side veils, after which it quickly rumbles down the final long cascading fall which spreads out over a fascinatingly contorted protrusion of schist bedrock, falling 53 feet to finish off the series. An additional side-by-side cascade of about 5 feet in height can be seen just downstream of the bridge on Thundering Brook Road. Immediately upstream of the upper tier of the falls is a small concrete dam which diverts a majority of Thundering Brook into a small hydroelectric generating house at the base of the falls which serves the Killington area, and its times of operation seem to vary - once when visiting the falls it was observed to essentially "turn off" almost instantly. However, the drainage basin which feeds into Thundering Brook is large enough that during the wetter months of the year (essentially mid October to June) the falls should have a more than adequate volume of water. While exact measurements seem to be lacking, USGS streamflow data from a gauge on Kent Brook at the inlet to Kent Pond suggest that Thundering Brook Falls does on occasion go completely berserk. In 2002 the high water reading clocked in at 792 cubic feet per second, and when Hurricane Irene passed through in 2011 the gauge read a staggering 2,840 cubic feet per second. It's almost a certainty that this volume of water did not all descend down the falls - some was drawn off by the hydro facilities at both the falls and Kent Pond - but the immense volume of the 2011 event appears to have actually carved a second outlet to Kent Pond to the north of Thundering Brook, as well as level some serious damage to the boardwalk along the AT downstream of the falls (and possibly damaged the road above the falls as well).The National Forest Service refers to the falls most frequently as just Thundering Falls, while an older and more colloquially accepted name of Bakers Falls was in more common usage in the area at one time but is not so common any longer. The falls were also at one time known as Dan Taylor's Cataract.