Lamoille Valley Rail Trail (Swanton, Highgate, Fairfield, Sheldon, Bakersfield, Fletcher, Cambridge)
This ride is straight and fast and fun. This was a perfect ride for snagging seven towns, because it just happened that we were lacking all the towns the Lamoille Rail Trail passed through from Cambridge to Swanton. The trail has very flat grades because it was a converted railroad bed. With only 570 feet of elevation gain per 30 miles, our average speed was way higher and vertical climbing WAY lower per mile than our normal rides.
We parked at Cambridge Junction Park and Lamoille Rail Trail parking lot. The surface of a rail trail is small diameter crushed stone with plenty of fines mixed in, making low rolling resistance. We were looking forward to it.
We started in the mist on early in the day when the temperatures were going to rise into the high 80s to the low 90s. The morning mist over the wetlands, mountains and fields was simply stunning.
The trail passes through A LOT of wetlands, and there is wetland wildlife to see, like geese, great blue heron, ducks, muskrat, and beaver to name a few. We didn’t see all of these, but did spot a few ducks, a great blue heron and signs of others.
Once out of the wetlands, you ride through farm fields under tillage with corn, hay, or soybeans. There were floods this summer, and we saw signs warning about washouts from flooding. The damage was minimal by our standards, and we breezed right through the patches of trail in repair.
The trail crosses VT 109 and VT 108 just north of Cambridge, passing through E. Fletcher
and then Bakersfield. Not the village centers, but the outback areas of town. On this ride you cross quite a few town highways and dirt roads, so make sure to look both ways!!
In E. Fairfield the trail parallels VT 36 with a few crossings in a short distance. There was a food truck and gas station there and we stopped to share a drink on a hot day. Then the trail turns due north as it runs to Sheldon. In Sheldon there is an industrial plant/site on the edge of the trail. In Sheldon, there is also an intersecting rail trail, the Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail (running between St Albans and Richford, VT- 26.4 miles).
Staying on the Lamoille Trail, you soon cross the Missisquoi River and Route 105 and begin to parallel VT 78. The trail then turns west and soon passes Highgate Center. The trail has alternating sections of tree cover with some shade and sections in fields with no shade.
There was never a steep hill on this rail trail, so you aren’t using all your gears. After Highgate, the trail grades down more than other parts of this trip all the way into Swanton. You will pass under I-89 then into a park trail. We turned around at the Swanton Transportation Museum on the west bank of the Missisquoi River. There were railroad artifacts in the park, and in the museum, as this area is rich in railroading history.
After spending some time at the museum, we turned around and biked the same 30 miles back to Cambridge and our car, but you could do an end to end with two cars, easily.
