Recreational Land in Caledonia County, Vermont: The Kingdom Trails Network

A 100-mile trail network built on permission, not public ownership or a recorded easement

Kingdom Trails, centered on East Burke in the town of Burke, is a roughly 100-mile network of singletrack mountain-bike trails widely regarded as one of the best in the country. What makes it distinctive as a land-use matter, not just a recreational amenity, is how it's built: about 100 different private landowners have voluntarily made portions of their land -- amounting to roughly 240 acres directly involved in the trail corridors -- available to the Kingdom Trail Association (KTA), a nonprofit formed in 1994 that plans, maintains, and manages the trail system. The land itself is not publicly owned, and the trails generally are not recorded conservation easements or public rights of way running with the land; they exist because individual landowners have agreed, and continue to agree, to let KTA route trails across their property.

That arrangement is workable at all because of Vermont's own landowner-liability statute, 12 V.S.A. Chapter 203 (sections 5793 and 5794): a landowner who allows recreational use of their land without charging a fee is shielded from liability for a recreational user's injury unless the landowner's conduct was willful or wanton, and allowing this kind of access does not, by itself, create any permanent right for the public or reduce the landowner's other property rights. In plain terms: the law is written specifically to make it low-risk for a Vermont landowner to say yes to something like Kingdom Trails, and just as easy for that same landowner to say no, or to change their mind later.

Growth, and a real 2019 access dispute that shows the risk is not hypothetical

The network's popularity has grown fast enough to create real friction. Visitation grew nearly 50% between 2016 and 2018, reaching an estimated 137,000 riders in 2018 alone, the large majority from out of state -- a level of traffic that brings real parking, noise, and conduct pressure onto what is, legally, still just a collection of private yards and back fields. In December 2019, three of the roughly 100 landowner-hosts in the network told KTA they no longer wanted mountain bikers crossing their land, citing overcrowding, parking problems, and rider behavior -- and because their participation was never anything more than permission, KTA had no legal basis to keep routing trails across those specific parcels once it was withdrawn. Trail segments had to be rerouted around the affected properties.

The lesson for a land buyer here isn't that the network is fragile in some existential sense -- it has operated continuously since 1994 and remains one of the region's biggest recreational and tourism draws -- but that individual trail segments, and by extension a specific parcel's proximity to or inclusion in the network, are not permanent facts you can simply inherit from a listing description. A parcel described as "borders Kingdom Trails" or "trail access" today reflects a live, ongoing landowner relationship with KTA that a previous owner may or may not have formalized, and that you, as the new owner, are free to continue, decline, or renegotiate.

What this means if you're buying land in or near East Burke

1. If a listing markets "Kingdom Trails access" or trail frontage as a selling point, ask KTA directly whether that specific parcel is a current, active part of the trail network, and on what terms -- don't assume a prior owner's informal understanding transfers automatically to you.
2. If you're buying with the intent of hosting a trail segment yourself (or continuing to host one), understand this creates no easement or reduction in your ownership rights under Vermont's recreational-use statute, and that you can set your own terms, including withdrawing permission later, the way the three landowners did in 2019.
3. If you'd rather not host trail traffic, check with the town of Burke and KTA whether the parcel currently carries any trail segment, since removing a route already relied upon by riders can be a more involved conversation than simply declining a new request.
4. Factor East Burke's trail-driven tourism economy (lodging, dining, bike shops) into land-value expectations for the immediate area, but recognize that value is tied to an informal, revocable access network rather than a permanent recorded amenity like a public park or a conservation easement trail.
5. For land elsewhere in Caledonia County outside the immediate East Burke trail footprint, none of this applies directly -- confirm with KTA or the town whether a specific parcel is actually inside the mapped trail network before assuming any of these considerations are relevant.