Northeast Kingdom, VT - Day 3

Last Thursday, our group did our third and final day of cycling in the Northeast Kingdom of VT. As this photo shows, the views continued to be amazing.

Unlike the previous two rides where we cycled from our inn, we started this ride from the West Glover Congregational Church, about a 30 minutes drive to the north.

The temperature varied from the upper 50s through the upper 60s throughout our ride, but the temperature swings felt more pronounced due to the constantly changing sunlight. Climbing a hill in the sun felt hot while descending in the shade could be rather cool.

The dark cumulous clouds often threatened the possibility of rain, but we only were caught by one 5 minute shower.

About halfway through our ride, we stopped at a small lake. The wind was absolutely howling. We were forced from the beach to protect our skin from being scoured by the sand in the wind. Fortunately, trees and hills usually offered us some protection from the wind during our ride.

In the second half of the ride, we had this one beautiful section of class 4 gravel road. Towns are not required to maintain class 4 roads, so they are sometimes challenging to ride. On the other hand, they are often in beautiful remote areas with virtually no traffic.

On small back roads, it is fairly common to pass a small isolated cemetery with grave stones from the 1800s and even the 1700s. This is one of the four such cemeteries we saw on our ride.

In the past few years, our group has cycled in the Finger Lake’s region of NY. We have really enjoyed those trips; however, we all agreed that we loved this gravel cycling in the Northeast Kingdom of VT even more. Plans are already being made for next year.