I think you can try for both weekends (10/2-3 or 10/9-10) to start with depending on foliage reports/ forecasts and participant voting. It wouldn't hurt to book reservations on both weekends for lunch. It might be better for a Saturday vs Sunday because of the long day involved and not having to get up for work the next day
Here's a link to Vermont Fall Foliage reports that gets updated frequently.
http://www.1-800-vermont.com/seasons/report.asp
I will scan and post an area map of Mt. Equinox and surrounding roads for everyone to ponder in the near future.