Do you love the West River Trail? Would you like to volunteer to help maintain the trail in a meaningful way? If so, read on!
The Friends of the West River Trail (FWRT) are launching a new volunteer opportunity called “Adopt an Acre”. There is a lovely 26 acre parcel of land that the trail runs through called the Riverstone Preserve, that includes an interpretive trail, called the Sibosen Trail. FWRT owns this property on which we have a conservation easement with the Vermont Land Trust.
In our Land Management Plan, we pledged to mitigate and control the invasive plants on this property. For several years, with the help of grant funds from the NCRS, we have hired Long View Forest to professionally treat the invasives. We have also been manually pulling the seedlings that continue to emerge, during monthly volunteer work days. Much of the 26 acres continues to need professional treatment, but there are 6 one acre or smaller parcels that can be managed manually, and we are looking for teams (families or groups of friends or individuals) to adopt the parcels. We estimate each parcel may take the equivalent of 8-16 hours per season (depending on how many people are sharing the work) and you may want to do it in 2-hour sessions. It can be a fun way to spend a couple of hours in a lovely place. If you are interested in “Adopting an Acre”, please contact the FWRT Steering Committee at lowersection@westrivertrail.org. We will provide training on identifying invasives, and how to use an app on your phone to show you the boundaries of your parcel, and where you are on your parcel in real time. We hope to hear from you!