Lake Champ: Part II

Lake Champlain was just as beautiful--and just as flooded as everyone told us it would be.

We arrived and found parking in Burlington where we could stay for a few days and took off on the first leg that was supposed to take up to North Hero where we had reservations at a little spot just off the water.  We got out about 45 minutes when a storm that was completely invisible before started to blow in directly in front of us.  10 minutes later the rain started coming down in drizzles. No problem! We threw on some light rainjackets and pressed on.  5 minutes later the trail was flooded out for as far as we could see.

We pulled out the map to chart our route around, found a way to do it that involved minimal backtracking, and then turned back to face one of the biggest storms I've ever been in.

Our few minutes of mapping may have saved our lives.  The rain started to grow more torrential, so we took cover under the awning of a nearby garage, and the rain turned to hail.  The owners of the house pulled up, and saw us with our kids standing under the 8 inch roof and invited us onto their porch (I don't blame them for not inviting us inside.  We were soaked and dressed in riding gear--the type of people they're probably sick of living directly off a bike trail).  The lightning picked up to 4 bolts per minute, and they were touching down all around us, 25 feet away to 100 feet away with a report that was louder than a cannon.  The hail got bigger (1/2" to 1" chunks of ice), and just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, a tornado touched down.

We were glad we had decided to wait out the storm.  It took more than an hour before the lightning and rain had died down enough that we could get back on the trail to backtrack.  And when we got to our turnoff, the backtrack was flooded too.  We discussed again, decided to drive up the first leg to Hero and launch again tomorrow.

The drive up to Hero was possibly even more miserable than waiting out the storm.  The tornado and storm followed the lone road all the way up to Hero, gather strength as it went.  When we stopped to get food, they told us that the town of St. Albans had been evacuated.  And when we got to the lodge that evening that was supposed to be on the water, it was actually in the water.

North Hero.  Flooded? Yes.

Needless to say, when we went to grab a pizza that night, they were shocked that we had even made it as far as we did before turning back.  And they were shocked that we were going to push on to Canada the next day.

But then, who understands anything that cyclists do?