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The Island Line Rail Trail runs about thirteen miles along the Lake Champlain shore from Oakledge Park in Burlington north through the city waterfront, over the mouth of the Winooski River, and out the Colchester Causeway toward South Hero. The Burlington miles are paved and busy, threading North Beach, Leddy Park, and Starr Farm Park. Past the river bridge the trail turns to gravel through Delta Park and Airport Park, then to crushed stone as the old railbed crosses open water on a bank of marble blocks. The causeway ends at the Cut, a gap kept open for boats, where a seasonal bike ferry carries riders to the Allen Point Access Area. The grade is rail-trail flat the whole way.
Island Line Rail Trail
Your comfort. Prognosticated.
-Cory
In a typical year the Island Line Rail Trail has about 107 to 148 days of excellent weather for popular activities such as hiking, dog walking, e-biking, running, biking, birding, and walking, with May, June, and September the best months.
Hourly comfort scores for the next 15 days of weather, tuned to your activity and your own thresholds.
Plan your visit to this trail. Get the best windows for a comfortable outing.
Enjoy the Island Line Rail Trail!
In half of past years, color along the Island Line Rail Trail peaks October 21 to November 2, typically around October 26. The trail has 11% deciduous coverage, with the majority being red maple, sugar maple, white ash, northern red oak, quaking aspen, and black cherry.
The Rutland Railroad's milk train once crossed Lake Champlain on a bed of marble. The Rutland and Canadian built the Island Line north from Burlington through Colchester and across the Champlain Islands to Rouses Point, New York, with the Colchester to Rouses Point stretch completed in 1899. To reach South Hero the railroad filled a causeway straight across the lake from Colchester Point and armored it with riprap blocks of marble. Trains 87 and 88 hauled milk from northern New York and Vermont to Boston and New York City. A local freight carried beans, apples, fuel, feed, and fertilizer to the island towns, and the night train, the Mount Royal, carried passengers and mail. Passenger service ended in 1953 after a strike. The last Rutland trains ran on September 25, 1961. Vermont bought the abandoned lines in 1963 but let the Island Line go, and crews took up the rails in 1964. The causeway roadbed survived because it had been built so heavily. Burlington finished its shoreline bike path from Oakledge Park to the Winooski River in 1990. The causeway was dedicated as a bike trail in 1994, with Governor Dean speaking. For three years a small river ferry carried riders across the Winooski to reach it. The Winooski River bridge opened in 2004 and joined the whole route from downtown Burlington to the causeway. The trail entered the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy Hall of Fame in 2010, and between 2019 and 2020 it received nearly two million dollars in upgrades.
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