The Quechee Gorge is located in

Quechee, Vermont Quechee is a census-designated place and one of five unincorporated villages in the town of Hartford, Windsor County, Vermont, United States. As of the 2010 census, the population of the CDP was 656. It is the site of Quechee Gorge on the Ottau ...

along

U.S. Route 4 U.S. Route 4 (US 4) is a long United States highway that runs from East Greenbush, New York, in the west to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in the east, traversing Vermont. In New York, US 4 is signed North-South to reflect its alignment in the s ...

. The gorge is 165 feet deep and is the deepest gorge in Vermont. It serves as a popular tourist attraction in Quechee State Park and can be viewed from the U.S. Route 4 bridge and from trails on both sides of the gorge. Many people from around New England flock to the gorge for the views. The

Ottauquechee River The Ottauquechee River (pronounced ''AWT-ah-KWEE-chee'') is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed April 1, 2011 river in eastern Vermont in the United States. It is a tributary ...

flows through the bottom of the gorge and is a popular whitewater kayak run.

Geology

The gorge was carved approximately 13,000 years ago as the

Laurentide Ice Sheet The Laurentide Ice Sheet was a massive sheet of ice that covered millions of square miles, including most of Canada and a large portion of the Northern United States, multiple times during the Quaternary glacial epochs, from 2.58 million year ...

retreated across the region. The carving is thought to be a result of rapid downcutting of the Ottauquechee River after the drainage of glacial

Lake Hitchcock Lake Hitchcock was a glacial lake that formed approximately 15,000 years ago in the late Pleistocene epoch. After the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated, glacial ice melt accumulated at the terminal moraine and blocked up the Connecticut River, cre ...

. The gorge cuts through bedrock of the Devonian Gile Mountain Formation and Mesozoic mafic dikes can be seen on the west wall.McHone, Gregory, 1981, The origin of the Quechee Gorge: Green Mountain Geologist, Vt Geological Society, Fall 1981, Vol. 8, #3.

References

The National Geological Society, Vol. 12 2009.

External links

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Geology of Vermont Quechee Gorge, Hartford, VT (VGS)
Canyons and gorges of Vermont Landforms of Windsor County, Vermont U.S. Route 4 {{Vermont-geo-stub