Stowe Land Trust Tom Rogers and Stowe Trails Partnership Carolyn Lawrence shared their guest perspective with the Stowe Reporter.
Published by the Stowe Reporter, October 24, 2024. Original link here.
When was the last time you spent time on one of Stowe’s trails? Maybe you went for a mountain bike ride in Sterling Forest, a trail run at Kirchner Woods or just walked the dog on the recreation path.
It’s rare that a week goes by, let alone a day, that Stowe locals don’t get out on a trail of some type. And visitors travel great distances to experience Stowe’s world-class trail networks — to downhill ski at the resort, Nordic ski at Trapps, mountain bike at Cady Hill, hike Stowe Pinnacle and so much more.
One thing that nearly always happens when you are out enjoying the trails in Stowe is that you meet people. Maybe you run into a neighbor or a friend out for a hike. Or maybe you make a new friend while you’re both enjoying the view from a summit.
Stowe’s trails connect us as a community. Now, we have the opportunity to come together, as a community, to connect Stowe’s trails.
The Stowe Land Trust and Stowe Trails Partnership are working together, in partnership with Stowe Nordic and the Catamount Trail Association, to conserve the Adams Camp Connector. This property represents the last piece of unprotected land between Adams Camp and the Stowe Recreation Path.
For the first time in Stowe’s history, we have a chance to realize an uninterrupted trail network across permanently conserved lands from the extensive trail networks on Mt. Mansfield through Adams Camp to the rec path. A new connector trail will establish a key link between existing trail networks, local businesses, swimming holes, restaurants and more. By protecting this land, we can put together the last piece of the puzzle that will allow uninterrupted trail access from the top of Vermont to the heart of the village.
If you are unfamiliar with its location, the Adams Camp Connector is the beautiful hillside across Route 108 from Topnotch. It is the colorful maple trees that provide the backdrop behind the farmer’s market field, and the land along the West Branch of the Little River on the opposite side of the Stowe Rec Path. It contains the lower part of the Haulapalooza mountain bike trail — the most popular trail at Adams Camp — as well as parts of the Catamount Trail and Stowe Derby Trail.
Protecting this land would enshrine permanent public access, helping safeguard the future of the 90-year winter tradition of the Stowe Derby and securing permanent public access to the bottom of Haulapalooza.
But conserving this land is not just a win for outdoor recreation. This land is also an important habitat for wildlife that moves between the foothills of Mt. Mansfield to the shoreline of the Little River. Protecting this forest will allow bears and other wild animals to find food and shelter in the woods rather than in people’s yards.
Keeping this forest intact is also a benefit to flood protection. Forests are nature’s natural buffer against flooding — forested land can soak up to 36 times as much water as developed lands during heavy rains. As a changing climate unleashes increasingly powerful storms in Vermont, conserving steep forested hillsides like this will protect the community from flooding.
Additionally, maple sugaring will continue on the property and some portions will be open to limited sustainable timber harvest, supporting the forest economy and providing locally sourced wood and maple syrup. The benefits of this conservation project are many.
But this opportunity comes with a catch. Due to an unusual set of circumstances, we are required to raise all funds and complete this project by the end of the year, or this deal will be lost. We need to come together as a community to raise $820,000.
The good news is we’re most of the way there. Thanks to many supporters, we have roughly $275,000 left to raise. The bad news is that the days are growing shorter, the air is getting colder, and 2024 is rapidly ending.
Our trails are the special places that connect us — to each other, to nature and to ourselves. Now, let’s connect Stowe.