this is the main highway that runs through mendon, vermont, called route 4. as you can see, it's a scenic little road lined by forests on both sides. that's what route 4 look like up until a couple weeks ago. here's what it looks like now. oh, instead of a nice, scenic road, it's now a thing that used to be a road but is now mostly just a river. when hurricane irene barrelled up the east coast a couple of weeks ago, it took most of that stretch of route 4 in vermont with it. the road vanished into the floodwaters and this, look at this, this is what is left over route 4. that is a big problem if you live in that area and use route 4 every day to get to work or to get to school or get to the grocery store. you know, you say problem, and vermonters say challenge. if you commute along route 4 and there aren't other roads to drive on as a detour, what do you do, when your primary means of getting to work and home and back again as gone away? vermonters it turns out hike through the woods. residents in central vermont found a half-mile-long path through the forest