Easy - 32.7 miles (52.6 km)
This loop, created by Lake Champlain Bikeways, winds through apple country – a magnificent landscape of orchards and farms retaining vestiges of their agrarian past. The upper Champlain Valley is one of the highest producing apple areas in the United States, second only to regions in Washington.
When traveling Acres of Apples, you’ll travel through five different apple orchards. The orchards marking the countryside of Peru had humble beginnings as backyard orchards in the late 1890s. The first commercial orchard on the route, Northern Orchards, began production in 1906. The larger orchards are in excess of 5,000 acres and approximately 80% of the apple trees are of the McIntosh variety. These trees are ideally suited to the Champlain Valley due to their ability to withstand harsh winters and mature in a shorter growing season.
In addition, this loop passes the largest dairy farm in Clinton County and offers a spectacular view of Ausable Chasm – a gorge formed millions of years ago from wind, water and ice.
