The Highland County Maple Festival is one of Virginia's premier events, with festival activities taking place throughout the county.  Spectacular mountain scenery, pastoral farms, arts and crafts, entertainment, food, and a chance to see traditional and modern "sugar camps" processing maple sap into sweet maple syrup and maple sugar (much better than the high-volume stuff produced by those Yankees up in Vermont).  This is a full-day field trip -- the drive to Monterey, the central venue for Maple Festival events, is about 3.5 hours.  Because of the time and distance involved, carpooling is recommended.  If you need help finding a ride, send an e-mail to field-trips@nospam!#*&^#)type address - don't copy spam protection(*@.@nospamnvps.org

Additional information concerning Highland County and 2012 Maple Festival events and venues is available at:   Maple Festival info

Here are driving directions and maps for two routes to Monterey: 1) primary: DLFD to Monterey - Primary Route.pdf; 2) alternate route: DLFD to Monterey - Alternate Route.pdf

Note that the primary route is the simplest route, involves more interstate driving and takes slightly less time, but the alternate route is more scenic. 

Date of field trip: March 17, 2012