Upcoming Sustainable Timber Harvest on Darling Hill Parcel
Join us for an Educational Walk Thursday, October 6th at 5pm starting from Village Sport Shop Trailside
As a light breeze combs through rolling meadows, lush woodlands slope toward the river. Where bobolinks flit through the grass in summer, rabbit tracks crisscross snow in winter. Bikers dart between pine trees. Hikers and horseback riders make their way along skid trails. Indeed, bounded on either side by Darling Hill Road and the Passumpsic River East Branch, the recently conserved Darling Hill parcel features stunning natural beauty and some of the network’s most popular trails—Ridge, Rim, Martha’s Pines, to name a few—and also hosts portions of a VAST trail and access to Heaven’s Bench.
Without a doubt, the Darling Hill Parcel’s central role in our trail network’s experience spurred your incredible contributions to allow KT to preserve this land. For that we are truly grateful. This land has a long legacy of active management, including timber harvests, grazing, and sugaring. As we conserved the Darling Hill parcel with a preexisting Current Use enrollment and forest management plan, a timber operation has been planned here for some time. Following the action steps in this plan and working with a licensed forester we will partake in a sustainable timber harvest this winter 2022-23.
This operation will be both healthy for the forest and supportive of our community’s broader goals. The impacted areas represent approximately a quarter of the overall parcel, with selective thinning in hardwood stands and smaller, continuous tracts of harvesting in softwood stands. We will remove many infected, split, and otherwise compromised trees to prevent unexpected deadfall for public safety, curb the spread of invasive species, and improve the overall health of the stand. However, we will retain some weakened trees to provide wildlife habitats for key local species, including songbirds, owls, and bats. Undoubtedly, some sections of the forest may look different, but as younger, healthier species establish, it will ultimately be healthier for the future.
In addition to fostering a healthier forest in the long-run, this winter’s timber harvest aligns with KT’s mission of fostering the health of our community by embodying our support for a working landscape. Similar to farming and sugaring operations, this timber harvest demonstrates how KT trails are not exclusive with other land uses. Not only do KT trails directly stimulate the regional economy, but their coexistence with other land uses provides so many benefits; this operation will support jobs through logging and downstream processing. Moreover, some of the harvested hemlock will be saved for future bridge projects on our trails. Other wood will go to local sugaring operations as firewood. All remaining proceeds will go toward KT’s Stewardship Fund which is devoted to caring for our lands.
An overall land stewardship approach strives for forest health, and is a powerful alternative to land development and permanent land-use change: conservation that involves thoughtful resource production to improve long-term forest health and support the local economy. With this move, KT is not only upholding Vermont’s long-standing legacy of working landscapes, but also embodying the fact that recreation and active resource management can coexist.
To learn more about the upcoming harvest and anticipated impact to winter trail access, we welcome you to join us on
Thursday, October 6th at 5pm at Village Sport Shop Trailside for a community walk of the forest. In addition to KT Staff, Northern Regional Forester Ryan Kilborn of Meadowsend will be guiding us. This event is an invaluable time to ask questions and learn more. Come join us in ushering in this beneficial and exciting phase of the Darling Hill parcel!
We appreciate your understanding and continued support of KT. To explain the importance and benefit of this harvest, we have also created signage and media to educate visitors about this timber harvest. Together, we can all be positive stewards of the land and our community by recognizing the synergies between recreation and working landscapes and even by educating others to do the same.
Luke Collins
KT Land Stewardship Intern
