The Peru Gazette

By Adele Douglas

On Monday, August, 31st, I drove to St. Albans, Vermont with my daughter and her friend to bike a small section of the Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail.  The trip from Peru to St. Albans took about 1.5 hours.  We took the ferry from Cumberland Head and then route I-89 to St Albans.

We explored about five miles of the 26 mile trail and rode through forests, bogs and fields, which I found very enjoyable. My younger companions didn’t seem as impressed and didn’t even stop to admire the five turtles I saw sunning themselves on a log.  The trail surface is loose, small white gravel on a very firm base. Our wide tires worked well on this surface.  The trail width seems to vary from 8 to 10 feet.  Since it’s on an old rail line the grade doesn’t get very steep,  but even the 3% incline for the 20 minute approach to the picnic table at about mile 4 was tiring.  The trail does cross roads, some of them busy, so if you go with kids who like to zoom ahead make sure they wait for you at intersections.

There’s a very good website with maps to download at www.mvrailtrail.com.   It shows where to park and what’s available along the route.  Be warned, we didn’t see any public toilets at the trailhead, so we used those of a nearby restaurant.  There was an ice cream place, so I earned a few good parent points there.  We brought our bikes with us. A quick internet check didn’t reveal any bike rental places in St.  Albans. 

I’ll try to head back to the Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail when Emily’s forgiven me for making her ride for almost 2 hours.  She said it would have been more enjoyable if she had known how long the ride was going to be and if she had had a map to follow her progress.  As usual , success is all in the preparation.  There are a number of places to access the trail.  Next time I’ll try to access the trail a little further along so that Emily can check out the Missisquoi River at Sheldon Junction, which will hopefully make her bike trail experience more enjoyable.