Here's some Green Mountain Loop tips

[humunuku]

I just did the Green Mountain loop last week (and it was incredible), so I though I'd share a few tips from the route:

• We left our car at the Lake Champlain Visitor Center, just on the NY side of the Champlain Bridge - on route 903 on map#10. They were very friendly, had a lot of info/maps for the area, and had no problem with leaving a car there (even over a holiday weekend)
• Map 11 - Grab a ferry schedule and adjust your timing/plans for the day with it in mind. The first ferry from Port Kent to Burlington was at 9:30 am and took an hour to cross the lake.
• Map 3 - The Prouty Beach Campground in Newport was super convenient to stores and restaurants (it was down town), but very expensive ($29). The tent sites were just a patch of grass with a table and water...no trees for privacy or shading.  There was a paved bike trail from downtown to the campground (not shown on the ACA map), nice way to avoid car traffic.
• Map 4 - In East Burk, the Kingdom Trails are a mountain bike mecca...if you mountain bike, do yourself a favor and rent a bike at the shop there and take a day and ride the trails. With that being said, plan ahead on lodging there and in Lyndonville since mountain bikers book a lot of the rooms in the area on weekends/holidays
• Map 6 - The Pastures campground had a cyclist rate of $10
• As the addenda suggests - the Champlain Bridge on map 10 is bike friendly.  A good way to cross the lake from Middlebury is to ride WayBridge Rd (rt 23), then turn left on rt 17( although there is currently1 mile of construction on 17 - e.g. rough gravel road)  to the bridge, then follow 903 to the main route
• Anything we came across that was listed as a gravel road was actually a hard-packed dirt road...good for riding...rolled pretty fast wet or dry
• Cell phone coverage was iffy, don't depend on it

[JayH]

Regarding Kingdom Trails, you can also camp at Burke mtn itself, which has tentsites and leantos and is very popular on the weekends... However, most of the trails right from the campground are more downhill related, but it still is possible to ride to where most of the X-C trails are (Darling Hill).    I got cell coverage at the campground (AT&T), YMMV.

Good stop at the ice cream place right on the road that goes up to Darling Hill, which has Giffords.. 

Jay

[JayH]

Speaking of the Green mtn loop, might also check out the Cross VT trail, which I think is informally known as the Rivendell trail, but it runs from Burlington to NH, around St Johnsbury (VT) area...   It's still I think a work in progress and a bit of it is still on roads but some of it is on MUPs, etc... and they have maps of the current CVT on their website...

http://www.crossvermont.org/

Jay