I crossed the border into Vermont at a one man check point. There were the usual questions one might expect from a border guard except for one. When asked where I was going, I said East Burke, to which he said with a certain tone of assumption, going golfing? I paused for a second and processed that question; he thinks I look like the typical set in his ways old golfer who likely would rather sit in a golf cart than fly down a hill on a mountain bike. NO! I said, I’m going mountain biking. Pop the trunk! He took a very brief look at the bike wrapped up with wheels off and returned to his station. The conversation was over, he sent me on my way. The drive through northern Vermont was exactly what one expects in the middle of October. The hills were alive with colour and the air was sharp and crisp making the visibility clear to the end of the horizon. I travelled down some winding roads that seemed to be made simply for the purpose of having fun driving a car, and I did. I arrived in East Burke which is a very small village just North of Lyndonville. Not much happens in East Burke except skiing in winter and mountain biking in the summer so locals have banned together to make mountain biking into a well-established tourist attraction created in part with permission from private landowners. I must say they have worked toward that goal with great enthusiasm. There is a 15 dollar fee to ride the Kingdom Trails that is collected at the Welcome Center in the center of the village. Mac computers are set up in the center to sign off on the waiver however one would be well advised to sign the waiver online before you leaving home. One of the staff members spends his day marking the free map with a highlighter based on what you would like to accomplish on that day. I was surprised to hear one of the staff members speaking in French but it didn’t take long to figure out why a staffer would speak French. I encountered a large number of French Canadians using the trail system, in fact on the day I was there it seemed that the vast majority of the riders were French, perhaps because it was the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend and East Burke is not far from the border. I asked the mapper to lay out a 2 to 4 hour ride to which he created a route with a smile on his face; he seemed to like his job. I headed out with map in hand to the starting point on the map; unfortunately I was looking at the map upside down, so I went to the wrong way to the top of the wrong hill. After climbing for 2 kilometres I talked to a few other riders who pointed out the error of my ways, and they said since you are here you should take Burnham Down to the bottom. Well that was one happy accident; the trail was of course, all downhill with one quarter of the trail made of raised 30 inch wide boardwalk. When I got back down to the bottom of the hill I turned the map up side right and headed up hill on a road for another 2 kilometers. Once again the climb was met by a rewarding downhill run. I found the trails all had a few features that seemed very common in their design, roots and berms. The trail builders spent a lot of time and energy building berms into the fast downhill corners, the roots happened naturally due to the nature of the soil type and species of trees growing in the hardwood forest. The landscape had some breath-taking scenes along cliff and river edges. There was one place, one moment in time that will forever be engrained in my mind when I think of Kingdom Trails. I found myself in the middle of a group of French-Canadians on the Side Winder trail, it just sort of happened that way. We were riding up one side of the valley and plunging straight back down and up the other side with a perfect flow, but it wasn’t the trail or the flow or the group I found myself in, no it was the light coming down through the high canopy. All of the trees in that area had leaves which had turned yellow making one feel like you were in a natural cathedral lit by massive yellow lights, spectacular. There were a few other trails that caught my fancy; Hog’s Back and Piggy Back. Both of these trails had nice flow and rhythm that I enjoyed as much as I enjoy bacon! Anything named Hog Back is always cool, I’m not sure why that is, it just is. I could go on and on about the vast number of trails and rate them but that would be a little much and perhaps take away from your own experience when you go there, and you should, you really should. Of course not everything is perfect and so it is even with one of the top rated trail systems in our part of the world. The map was very well designed and the staff members were both friendly and helpful to aid with directions. The one complaint I have about the trail system is that it relies too much on old double track trails to connect some of the single-track trails. The links are at times spread out and riders tend to wander back and forth trying to find a trail shown on the map. The start and end of the trails were usually well labeled but some of the signage made me chuckle. One sign said River at a Y in the trail, no indication which way was which. It would be a great improvement to the trail system if it did not use double tracks to connect disjointed trails. The forest is vast and joining the trails without using double track would not be difficult to do. Overall I would highly recommend making the trip to East Burke, Vermont to ride the Kingdom Trails. There are too many trails to ride in one day and the terrain is very hilly so best to plan a weekend stay and ride for 2 to 3 days. I rode the following trails in this order. Burnham Down,(up paved road), Upper Harp, Harp, Coronary, French Line, Troll Stroll, Eager Beaver, River Run, Hog Back, Piggy Back, Side Winder, West Bench, Old Web’s, Border, Jaw, Maxilla, Sugar Hill, Ridge, East Branch, Leather Wood, Beat Bog, Kitchel and Herb’s.
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January 2024
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