5 Vermont State Parks for Summer Fun

Scattered among Vermont’s fabled Green Mountains are more than 800 lakes and ponds, at least a third of them larger than 20 acres. That’s a lot of water for paddling, sailing, fishing and swimming, and a lot of scenic shorelines for sunning, hiking and picnicking.

Vermont has set aside some of the best of these lakes as state parks. Along with the waterfront activities, most state parks also have campgrounds and some offer rentals of kayaks and paddleboards.

Lake Bomoseen is the largest lake entirely within Vermont’s borders, west of Rutland, in a former slate-producing region. In addition to the shore of Lake Bomoseen, the park’s lands surround nearby, smaller Glen Lake. You can rent canoes, kayaks and standup paddleboards at the large swimming beach. The park also has a campground and a children’s playground.

Follow a self-guided Slate History Trail to learn about slate mining, and bring some chalk along so kids can write on slate pieces they discover there.

Southwest of Rutland and only 3 miles from the New York state line, Lake St. Catherine covers more than 850 acres with three different bodies of water. The main lake is connected by channels to Lily Pond in the north and Little Lake on the south, making Lake St. Catherine State Park a favorite park for kayaking.

Rent kayaks, canoes and paddleboards at the swimming beach, where there’s also a campground.  The cold waters mean good fishing here, and at the northern end of Little Lake is Wells Lakeside Park with a boat launch and picnic area.

Not far from the college town of Middlebury, Lake Dunmore is more than 3 miles long and as much as 1 mile wide at the northern end. On the west is Branbury State Park, with a 1,000-foot natural sandy beach and broad grassy areas for sunning and picnics. Two camping areas allow the choice of wooded sites or those at the edge of a grassy field close to the beach, where you can rent canoes, kayaks, rowboats and pedal boats.

The largest lake — in fact, the largest in the entire northeast — is Champlain, which Vermont shares with New York. Three smaller state parks along its shore have beaches for swimming and water sports (with equipment rentals), and Knight Point State Park on North Hero Island has a large campground along with a sandy swimming beach and boat rentals. If fishing is your sport, you’ll find more than 90 species here, and it is among the best lakes in the entire northeast for bass fishing. Close to Burlington is Sand Bar State Park, whose 2,000 feet of sandy beach remains shallow for some distance, a good choice with children.

While it doesn’t have a beach or even a lake, Molly Stark State Park, near the Massachusetts line in the southern Green Mountains, offers a rare and short easy climb with a very long view. A 2-mile loop trail from the campground leads to the summit of Mt. Olga. There you’ll find a fire tower with views of nearby Hogback Mountain and, to the north, Green Mountains. To the south, views extend across the Mohawk Valley to the Berkshires in Massachusetts, and to the east, you can see Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire.