Lone Pine Campsites –
Colchester, VT near Burlington
Photo link:
https://picasaweb.google.com/107097369989809012646/6312123842724909745?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJmrsfyGx5KQ6wE&feat=directlinkWhat a beautiful drive from Rutland up to the Burlington area, by Lake Champlain. As usual we drove the backroads. Highway 7 was a gorgeous mountain drive all the way up to the campground, Lone Pine Campsites. The campground was nice as we had expected, we got settled in and right away we met our RV camping neighbors. Really nice family from Vermont and they only live 12 miles away. There were many Vermonters camping there. This campground was up on a ridge overlooking Malletts Bay in a town called Colchester, a bay off of Lake Champlain.
We drove down to Malletts Bay to have a look around and see what was in the area. It was a beautiful bay filled with sailboats and all kinds of recreational boating activities. We even saw a hot air balloon flying over the lake. We had taken the dogs so they could get out and run around a little bit. We started planning activities for the next few days.
Vermont, along with the town of Burlington, is very bicycle friendly. There are bike paths everywhere and we found an amazing Rail Trail that goes up the center of the lake on the causeway that was constructed originally for a railroad, which had been abandoned many years ago. The causeway had been constructed of huge chunks of marble which is very abundant in Vermont. We rode the trail the next day. We rode the bikes up to a point where there was a channel for boats to pass though. At that point we had to board a bicycle ferry that took us to the other side of the channel. We then proceeded up onto the island of Grand Isle in a town called South Hero. We rode around South Hero, which was a small community of farms, cafes and shops. We had a really nice lunch at Allenholm Farm Stand; they had all kinds of animals there, a petting zoo for children and everyone to see, we did enjoy looking at the goats.
After lunch we proceeded to ride the trail all the way back to our truck. The round-trip ride was about 21 miles at the end of the day we were exhausted but amazed by the beautiful Lake, the islands and all the mountains on the east and west. It was wonderful to look eastward and see the Green Mountains and then to look westward and see the Adirondacks in New York. This is a beautiful amazing place.
The next day we really needed a down day so we decided to just check out the city of Burlington, drive around and go to some sporting good shops. We decided to get a hitch mount bike rack to use whenever we are unhitched and need to go to a mountain bike park. It makes it so much easier than to take the wheels off of the bikes and put them in the back of the pickup and then have to reassemble everything when we get to our destination. We eventually found a store called Rack Warehouse, where we found the exact type of bike rack we needed. Going forward on this trip we will be able to make it a lot easier to haul our bikes around.
Later that afternoon we decided to take a scenic drive up to the Champlain Islands. Again we encountered beautiful farms and quaint little villages throughout the Grand Isle area. There are so many beautiful views to the east of the Green Mountains and to the west of the Adirondacks, along with all the gorgeous little bays and beaches along the way. It was a great way to end our day.
Our last day was spent with our kayaks on the water. We found a river north of us called the Lamoille River. Kurt found an outfitter who hauled our equipment to the top put in and we just paddled downstream back to the outfitters place. We were able to take the dogs on this kayak trip, and they were glad to be outside. It was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed the paddle. The current was running pretty fast because it rained the day before, so we completed the paddle in about 2 hours instead of 3.
We were looking forward to our next adventure in Vermont at St. Johnsbury and the Kingdom Trails for mountain biking.
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