Route - Island Line Rail Trail, S Burlington-Colchester, VT

Trailheads - numerous places to get on the trail

Distance - full length of the trail is 13.4 miles one way; if you don't want that much distance, you can park near the northern end

Map - free sign up on TrailLink.com gives you access to the map. Google maps accurately shows the trail and parking areas/access points.

On a sunny spring Monday, since many of the trails I usually run were quite wet, and I didn't want to contribute to the erosion, I headed up to Burlington for a run on dry ground- 24 miles of it, in fact. I really don't like running on pavement, and my legs much prefer the quick ups and downs of trail running, but it was an ideal mud-season run. I parked at Oakledge Park in S Burlington and ran as far north as I could, which is 12 miles, then I turned around and ran back. The southern 9 miles of the trail is paved bike path, running mostly in view of Lake Champlain, but also through Burlington neighborhoods. The northern section of the trail in Colchester runs first through woods, then out onto the spectacular causeway that used to take the rail line across the lake. There is a cut in the causeway for boat traffic, and in summer there is a bike ferry which you could use to complete the out-and-back for a total of 26.8 mi RT.

I ran it on a weekday. I understand that it may be very busy with bike traffic on a weekend, and less enjoyable to run if you don't like crowded trails.