Charlotte Town Beach Lake Champlain
— — the water that holds the Adirondacks at evening.
Not only on a wall.
“A small town beach at the end of Lake Road, looking west across the lake at the Adirondacks. The ferry to Essex, New York runs from the dock just to the north, the boat crossing the broadest stretch of Champlain in about twenty minutes. The sand is fine, the swim shallow for a long way out, and the sunsets are the kind that empty the parking lot slowly because no one wants to be the first to leave. A town-run beach, free to Charlotte residents, modest fee for everyone else.
Charlotte Town Beach Lake Champlain, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Charlotte Town Beach sits at the western end of Lake Road in Charlotte, Vermont, about twelve miles south of Burlington along the Lake Champlain shoreline. The beach is owned and run by the town and looks directly across the broad lake at the high peaks of the Adirondacks, including Whiteface and the Jay Range. Lake Champlain itself is the sixth-largest natural freshwater lake in the United States, roughly 120 miles long and as much as 12 miles wide at this latitude. The Charlotte-Essex ferry, a Lake Champlain Transportation route in service since the 1820s, leaves from the dock immediately to the north.
The bottom shelves out slowly for thirty or forty yards, which makes the beach an early favourite for families. Surface temperature in July runs to about 72 Fahrenheit; the deepest part of the lake, between here and Essex, drops to roughly 400 feet. The view west takes in some forty miles of the Adirondack High Peaks. Walleye, lake trout, and smallmouth bass move through the bay; the Lake Champlain Basin Program tracks water quality at this stretch as part of its long-running monitoring of the broad lake.
The beach is open from late May through early September, with lifeguards on most weekend afternoons. There is a small fee for non-residents, paid at the gate. Picnic tables, a swing set, and a small concession run on summer Saturdays. The Charlotte-Essex ferry runs roughly every twenty minutes from the dock to the north, mid-spring through late fall, and the crossing to the New York side takes about twenty minutes. No dogs on the beach in summer; the rail trail just inland is the better dog walk.