Canaan and Averill
7/24/25
This was a fantastic ride that involved lakes, and horses, and walks through the fern. Unexpected benches in beautiful spots. In short, it had it all, and then some.
The beginning of this ride is along a shady lake road. We parked on 114 and rode just few hundred yards to take a left turn on the northeastern shore of the lovely Averill Lake. We road SE along this treelined road with many beautiful shorefront residences.
We talked with a resident, and found out about the “QC connector” trail located at the southern end of the town road (and a section of private drive).
We got off our bikes and walked the connector trail until we encountered a narrow gravel road heading roughly north/south. We rode NE and came out right in the middle of the Camp Quimby, a family camp that started as fishing camp in 1893 on Forest Lake. It has since transitioned into a family camp where multi-generations of families rent one of the many nice cabins looking out over the little Forest Lake.
See quimbycountry.com This place is full of nice people having a good time and we ended up biking through the fun! We talked at length with a woman camping there who was really nice.
Then we road Canaan Hill road to the Canaan town line where the road turned to class 4 and headed downhill at 10 to 15% grade. Not a rough class 4 but not as smooth as the gravel road in Averill. Canaan Hill Road continues all the way to VT Route 102 that parallels the Connecticut River for a total length of somewhere between 7 and 8 miles, with plenty of
vertical. On the way back, we road the Forest Lake road. This brought us to the far end of the lake, complete with lilypads. We rode the very smooth gravel, nearly flat, past hunting camps to return to Route 114 and our car.
