Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports has purchased a 125-acre property in Rochester to build the first-ever adaptive outdoor center in the state. The move also permanently protects popular trail access.
Vermont Adaptive, which helps people of all abilities recreate outdoors, purchased the swathe of farmland and forest in Rochester with support from Vermont Land Trust and Vermont Housing and Conservation Board.
“It’s such a beautiful property,” said Erin Fernandez, who leads Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports. “It really is amazing. And the view is outstanding from our hillside.”
The nonprofit said the property will host an adaptive outdoor center and preserve public access to mountain biking and hiking trails maintained by the local nonprofit Ridgeline Outdoor Collective.
Vermont Adaptive plans to convert an old farmhouse onsite into housing for interns, and build a new accessible building where they can operate retreats for athletes with disabilities, particularly veterans. The organization also plans to build camping infrastructure and accessible bathrooms and trailheads, along with a bathhouse.
Fernandez said the camping facilities will be a mix of frontcountry sites like yurts, “mid-country” sites like lean-tos and some accessible backcountry facilities.
Work on the campsites is expected to start this summer.
Mead Binhammer, with Vermont Land Trust, said conserving the property offers ecological benefits, too.
“The parcel is pretty unique,” he said. “It sits right above the village of Rochester, and it’s pretty much all mature forestland with stands of large white pine and other stands of sugar maple.”
Binhammer said the property also contains wetland complexes that feed into a tributary of the White River, and that protecting these sites will confer some flood resilience to communities downstream.
The move also protects a key landmark in Rochester village — a striking, old, large white pine on display when driving Route 100 through Rochester village, called “Katie Big Tree.”
Binhammer said the parcel includes a short path to the tree, which local elementary school students visit on a field trip each year.
Fernandez said the adaptive outdoor facility will be the first of its kind in Vermont, and will allow Vermont Adaptive to offer housing for veterans and other athletes within 20 minutes of its hubs at Sugarbush and Killington.
