Bike Trails VT. Island Line Trail
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Raw file: Island Line Trail.gpx (169.57 KB)
My wife, brother and I are bicycle enthusiasts who enjoy riding the ever increasing number of rail / canal trails mostly in the Northeastern US. We also do volunteer work for NOAA by recovering US Coast & Geodetic Survey Benchmarks. We often combine these hobbies while trail riding.
Unlike geocaching, benchmark hunting serves a valuable purpose by providing NOAA with updates on the condition of their 700,000+ benchmarks across the Unites States. Information on Benchmarks is available here: https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/datasheets/
We have been riding these trails for over 10 years now and I decided to share some of the .GPX files I’ve created. Of the hundreds of trails available in this part of the country, I selected these for their quality, scenic beauty, lack of excessive grades or hazardous terrain and overall riding or hiking enjoyment. These files contain tracks for trails, waypoints for significant features such as road crossings, bike shops, campgrounds, points of interest and USCGS benchmarks along or near the trail. All waypoints include elevation data for use in plotting trail slope and planning outings.
This trail is Vermont’s Island Line Trail which follows the abandoned right of way of the Central Vermont Railway from Burlington to South Hero Island. Although relatively short at just 13.5 miles, the trail hugs the shoreline of Lake Champlain and offers beautiful scenic views of the lake and the Adirondack Mountains. The highlight of the trail is the Colchester Causeway, a narrow 3.5 mile rock fill in the lake which links the town of Colchester to South Hero Island.
There is a 200 foot wide gap in the trail near the south shore of South Hero Island. During the season, there is ferry service across the gap which allows bicycles and pedestrians to access the last mile of the trail. For ferry information, check the Local Motion website: http://www.localmotion.org/il_schedule_fares .
This file was compiled using a variety of resources including:
Traillink.com’s Island Line Trail web page:
https://www.traillink.com/trail/island-line-rail-trail/
Vermont State Parks Island Line map:
https://vtstateparks.com/assets/pdf/bike_burlington_bike_pat...
Trip Advisor.com’s Island Line web page:
https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g57201-d...
NOAA - http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/
Rivopom’s Combined US campgrounds POI Factory file
Garmin’s Mapsource & Basecamp software
USCGS Topographic Maps. Available legally at no cost for many States here:
Google Earth
Garmin’s Birds Eye Imagery
Various Internet & Print resources
Personal Knowledge
Anyone interested in Benchmark hunting can obtain detailed data sheets for each mark by going here: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/ds_pid.prl The PID is the waypoint name symbolized by the color coded cube icons. Green= Recovered within the last 10 years. Blue= No recent recovery but set in a massive structure which still exists. Red= Likely missing or reported destroyed.
Detailed data sheets can be downloaded in .pdf format and transferred to most smartphones for easy access.
Free, legal, 24K and 100K topo map downloads for the states with these trails are available here: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/ Segments of these maps covering the above trails can be loaded into many older handheld GPS receivers with limited memory by using Garmin’s Mapinstall program available Here: http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=3291
I’ll post more trail files as I update and clean them up. I always enjoy conversing with fellow bike trail enthusiasts so please feel free to contact me with comments, questions, inclusions or revisions. – Enjoy!