Slate Valley Trails - Fairgrounds

 

There are 8 trail systems managed by the Slate Valley Trails organization with 60+ miles of trails. On Friday, Juneteenth, I headed over to Poultney, about a 30 minute drive from Rutland, and parked at the Slate Valley Fairground Trailhead to ride this trail system. 

Download the map

The Fairgrounds Trail system makes up the bulk of the trails with over 50 miles of interconnected foot & bike trails that link to both the Endless Brook and Lake St. Catherine Country Club trailheads. Ann & I got a taste of the trails last year when we camped out at Lake St Catherine State Park.

There were tents up and I wondered if there was some sort of event earlier in the day. There was a pump track on the other side of the road, too.

From the lot I headed up the dual track and turned on the first singletrack trail called Merry Go Round. It was a green trail and an adaptive trail, too.  It was another textbook example of trail building from the IMBA Handbook. It had a nice flow to it and was fun to ride.

I met a guy on this trail doing some TM and asked what I should ride and he suggested the nearby black diamond trail called Cliff Hanger, but after my fall at PHP two weeks ago on Stegosaurus, I was staying away from the really difficult trails.

From Merry Go Round I rode through a field and thought about riding the lower section of the trail but figured I would hit it on the way back so I headed over to Bumper Cars.

Bumper Cars had some nice single track that was pretty flowy and there were quite a few armored sections using what else but slate.  Probably the best material for armoring and you could even say they are putting the slate back in the Slate Valley. When I come back I want to try riding the trail in the opposite direction to see if rides better than the counter clockwise route I did today.

Popping back out into the field I came to an intersection. If I went left I would head back to the parking area.  Right would take me across Rt 140 into more single track.

After crossing Rt 140 I headed into the Fairground West section of the trail system.

I crossed over the Poultney River and it was crystal clear and looked totally inviting to go swimming.

This the portion of the West Fairgrounds that I rode today.

I started out on Cotton Candy which was fast flowy single track, just what I love.

Then rode Tight Rope, which was flowy but not as fast because it stayed on top what could have been tailings from left over from early mining. The turns were tight and there were a lot of up and downs.

Then I went back to Cotton Candy.

Then onto Clown Shoes.  It was similar to Tight Rope where you were riding on tailings. It was tight and twisty and there was a tree down in the trail.

Then it was onto a harder trail called Big Top.  It was a lot of climbing. Along the way I found this bike on the side of the trail, it looked like the rider might have crashed with the dirt on the end of the handlebars.  Further up the trail I found a group of guys. One without a bike, that bike must have been his, and two others. Apparently one of them had crashed in a wet area but he was fine.

I found the wet area, the hard way, too! Glad I was wearing the pads because I hit my bad knee again. The pads definitely helped.

Once I got to the top of the hill for which Big Top climbed, or so I thought, there was a nice overlook. However, the trail continued climbing.

Not sure what this socket symbolizes. If it's a Geocache it's not really well hidden. There was nice, flowy single track descending from here but those hopes were dashed of a nice descent when I started climbing again.

Finally I got to the top of the Big Top Trail and there was a nice view looking towards the Adirondack Mountains.

Finally I started descending.  After all that climbing I was starting to get tired and I started thinking about heading back to the car but after looking at Trail Forks it looked like this trail continued for a few more miles and I didn't think I had that much left in the tank.

I came to an intersection with a trail called Scrambler, which was supposed to be a more difficult trail and decided to take it as it would take me down to the dual track called Ring Master that I could ride back to the trailhead. For a black diamond trail, it wasn't that bad.

I rode Ring Master back to the Poultney River and crossed over the bridge. When I return, I want to ride everything I rode only in the opposite direction to see which way rides best.

I picked up the Maple Sugar dual track trail back to the parking lot, but doubled back on some single track that paralleled it. Then crossing over Town Farm Road I found some nice single track that went back to the parking lot.