Middlebury College has donated a permanent right-of-way for a stretch of the Long Trail to the Green Mountain Club.
The move protects public access to the 1.5-mile section of trail, which runs over Middlebury College's Snowbowl ski area, in perpetuity.
This part of the 272-mile long hiking trail runs from the summit of Mount Worth to Route 125 in Hancock, and is best known for being a popular way to hike to Pleiad Lake.
"It feels fairly remote," says Mollie Flanagan, director of land conservation for the Green Mountain Club. "Even though you're in a ski area and you do cross the downhill ski lines a number of times, the sections between the ski lines feel like classic northern Vermont forest, so it's a beautiful section of trail."
The Green Mountain Club has made it a priority since the 1980s to permanently protect public access to every mile of the Long Trail, which runs from Canada to Massachusetts.
With the acquisition of this right-of-way, access to just 2% of the long-distance hiking trail remains unprotected — about 4.5 miles. GMC hopes to close that gap.
"Every single parcel that host the trail is critical to its continuity, so having a legal formality for the trail in every section is critical to our ability to provide a long distance hiking trail," Flanagan said, adding that its permanently protected status opens the door to new funding possibilities for future maintenance and trail work in the area. She said many grants for trail work require proof that public access is permanently guaranteed.
Matt Curran is director of business services at Middlebury College, which has provided public access to the trail across its Snowbowl property for 114 years.
He said the parcel the trail runs through was donated to the college in 1916 by Joseph Battell.
"Over the years, it has undergone several transformations, going back to the '40s and '50s when it was just a ski jump up there and our students used it, right into what we now know as the Snowbowl," he said.
"We're happy to partner with [the Green Mountain Club] and to see this, resource here in our community to remain for a long, long time," Curran said.
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