A special surprise awaited us on a trail with rural Vermont scenery that was already outstanding.

There was a reason we hadn’t yet discovered the Delaware and Hudson Rail-Trail

The fishing had been good.

So good that the bikes had not seen the daily riding we anticipated when my friend Gary and I left Virginia for a week of play at my family cabin on Lake Champlain in Addison, Vermont.

We hauled the gravel bikes all the way up there, having pined to ride some Vermont back roads as we waited out the long winter months back in Virginia while a rainy spring had made riding more of a yearning than actual rubber on the road.

All of a sudden we only had a day left at the cabin and the bikes hadn’t budged.

Gary Googled up a rail trail about an hour away, so we stashed the fishing rods, loaded the bikes, and headed south.

Arriving at the Delaware and Hudson Trailhead

Unlike many of the rail trails I’ve ridden, the Delaware and Hudson did not have lots of signage or parking places or restrooms or anything that screamed, “Come here and ride your bike.”

In fact, you kind of had to search for it.

The trail begins in Vermont, dips into New York State then back into Vermont, with a four-mile gap which forces riders onto the local highway.

We opted to start just after the gap, so we would have miles of continuous trail.

More on the particulars later. For now, the take away is that we rode for a while on the New York side.

It’s easy to tell that New York State barely embraces the coolness of this trail.

And I’m being generous about the “embrace” part. It’s more like a COVID-19 hug from six feet away.

The Delaware and Hudson is a tale of two states.

The Vermont sections of the trail are split by a short section of New York State where we were told the trail has reverted to the local landowners. Following one of the maps online, however, we found ourselves starting in Middle Granville, New York.

Follow me on Strava!

We asked for permission to park behind Chapman’s General Store, then rode about 100 yards (up Depot Street) to an opening in the trail.

If I had to do it over again I would skip this section and go straight to Vermont. But…

The Delaware and Hudson in New York

We rode the trail for about six-tenths of a mile before running straight into the side of a working dairy farm.

Between us and the rest of the trail which we could see beyond the barn, about 150-yards away, was some of the raunchiest, stenchiest and most unpleasant-est manure filled muck you can imagine.

But hey, this is an adventure, right?

So we held our noses and maneuvered as best we could behind the barn, around the muck and back onto the “trail.”

From here the path meanders behind some light industrial buildings, homes and what looked like a park under construction.

At some points, the trail was barely wider than my tires. In others, it was just plain grass. To be fair, the grass had been cut and our gravel bikes rolled along easily.

After a bit, the trail widened into double track and we pedaled through a nice tunnel of trees.

This was nice enough, but we had no idea what nice really was.

Welcome to Vermont

After about 6 miles, we arrived at a town that appeared to be all but abandoned – West Pawlet, Vermont. We saw a couple of empty storefronts beside a working post office with a war memorial in the middle of a roundabout.

West Pawlet has seen better days.

But it’s also where something magical happened on the trail. Think, Dorothy’s first glimpse of the Emerald City.

You know, the part where after all kinds of turmoil, Dorothy, The Scarecrow, Tin Man and Lion came over a rise and couldn’t believe what they were looking at.

Just as we crossed into Vermont, the trail surface became a wide, hard-packed dirt surface as if a wizard himself had created the perfect bike path.

Everything was still Vermont beautiful, but instead of the rough road we had been riding on, we now coasted along on a gravel road that was almost asphalt-hard.

My first impression was that there had been repairs to a washout from the spring rains, but after a few hundred yards – and then a mile or so, it was clear that this surface was here to stay.

We were now rolling along at a pretty good clip with stupid grins on our faces.

Delaware and Hudson Now THIS is riding!

We upped the speed easily by 3-4 miles per hour with no additional perceived effort, all the while feeling like someone had steamrolled this trail just for us.

Neither of us had ever seen such smooth gravel. Yet for mile after mile – there it was.

A bold creek flowed beside the trail, while wildflowers leaned over the edges of the dirt path.

Occasionally we saw small disturbances in the dirt, which Gary said were turtle nests. Cool.

And here’s the answer…

“This has to be new work,” Gary said. “No gravel road can look like this for very long.”

Somewhere around 15 miles, the trail improved even more — maybe 1-2 percent — but just enough to notice.

Then down the road about as far as we could see, there was heavy equipment.

Half a mile later we were talking with the crew, who indeed had a roller and other road working equipment, and in fact, they HAD just finished rolling the section we were riding.

We were definitely the first to ride on at least the most recent part.

“We do this every 15 years,” the lead man told me. “We are almost at the end.”

Yep. They were a couple of dump trucks short of a full trail.

We rode past them for about a quarter of a mile — the part they hadn’t done yet – just to say we did the whole thing.

Sure enough there was a sign. Vermont ends and once again New York begins.

But the trail ends.

Here’s the deal on the new Gravel

We talked to the crew working on the trail. The gravel that compacts so well is called Crusher Light. It comes from a local quarry.

I have no idea what condition the trail will be in if or when you give it a shot.

I expect in 15 years it will be ready once again for some serious rehab. We passed a sign that asked people to be careful during “mud season” and oh yeah, there is a speed limit of 35 mph for snowmobiles.

We don’t see that here in the south.

The bottom line is that this gravel is going to see some significant use even before next summer.

But we had a chance to ride it while it was still perfect.

If you go…

As I mentioned in the blog, There’s no real place to access the trail in Middle Granville — but the folks at the store were very accommodating. We made sure to buy lunch there afterward and it was excellent.

If you just want to ride the Vermont section that we rode, There is a small parking area right there at West Pawlet. This is what I would suggest.

Although I made light of the New York side of the trail — it is interesting and there are indications that local people really want to keep it going so don’t rule it out.

In fact, Gary and I are taking our wives and gravel bikes back to the trail later this summer to stay in the Station House B & B in Granville, NY. The converted depot looks amazing.

Now let’s hope that gravel is still as awesome as it was in June!

I’ll let you know how it goes!