More Kingdom Trails!

I've been up to Vermont A LOT this year... gravel rides, mountain bike festivals, races, it's all been good because I do love the Green Mountain state. As the season winds down, some friends and I made one last sojourn before the leaves were all down and the temps dipped below freezing.

Saul, Jeff, Glen and myself rented out a portion of the Bike Barn for two days of Kingdom Trails.

On our first day, by the time we got up to East Burke, got our passes and hit the trails, it was already afternoon, so we only had a few hours of fun. We hit some of the favorites, including Moose Alley, Beat Bog, Riverwood, and Kitchel, but also hit some newer stuff like Burnham Down New and Ware's Davis. The ever expanding network of trails is simply amazing.




We topped off our day of riding at the Burke Mountain Hotel And Conference Center's View Pub with good beer and grub and then settled in to see what the weather would bring the following morning. The predictions had originally included cold rain all day, but the MTB Gods shone down upon us and gave us a clear morning to ride. Unfortunately, Glen had to bail early to get back for work commitments  It was doubly unfortunate because not only did he miss out on some riding, he missed out on some truly epic trails.

Kingdom Trails extends all over East Burke, from Darling Hill to Burke Mountain and the trails are simply awesome. But now, they've leap frogged up a few miles the road to East Haven and created an area called Moose Haven. It doesn't look very impressive on the map, and there might be 7ish miles of trails there, but OH MY GOD. Check out the video above but the short story is that there are a couple of different downhill options with a central evil fire road climb that should have a lift. But it doesn't have a lift, so you pedal, and pedal, and pedal. It's only a little over a mile distance, but it's s steep 600+ ft of climbing. Once your heart settles back down in to your chest, take Black Bear or Storming' Norman back down and you will easily turn around to climb back up to do it again.



Black Bear was definitely my favorite. We really hadn't done any research and didn't know what to expect. We just wanted to check it out because it was new. It was new, and it was awesome.

I can't wait to see what KTA does next!