All are welcome at a trail opening and celebration at the 500-acre Pratt Refuge in Duxbury on Thursday, June 4. The Vermont Land Trust and community celebration take place from 4 to 6 p.m. and feature a ribbon cutting, guided walks, and refreshments.
The Pratt Refuge has been open to the public since 2019, after the Pratt family donated the conserved land to the land trust. It is a birding hotspot where more than 120 bird species have been documented, and where the land trust hosts birding events each year.
The June 4 event will mark the opening of a new accessible trail through the forest with interpretive signs about birds, a second new trail to a lookout with views of Camel’s Hump, and improvements to an existing birding trail.
The celebration brings together community groups and organizations that collaborated with Vermont Land Trust (VLT) on these projects, including Audubon Vermont, Mad Birders, Vermont Trails & Greenways Council’s Trail Accessibility Hub, Vermont Center for Independent Living, Vermont Adaptive, Birdability, Vermont Youth Conservation Corps, and Vermont Fish & Wildlife.
“We are delighted to host this celebration for birders, nature lovers, and all who love to explore the outdoors,” said VLT’s Caitlin Cusack, “and we are grateful to the many partners who are helping us make the Refuge more welcoming for people of different abilities. Thanks are also due to the Pratt family, who protected and then donated this land to VLT. We are gratified to help fulfil Fred Pratt’s vision of enhancing habitat for birds, and of opening this special place so more people can experience the wonder of birds.”
The Pratt Refuge in Duxbury spans over 500 acres of forest that belonged to the late Fred and Chris Pratt and their son, John Pratt. They conserved the land with VLT and later donated it to the land trust to open it to the public and to manage it for forest health and bird habitat, as well as learning and exploration.
The Pratt Refuge is near the forests of Camel’s Hump State Park and sits within one of Vermont’s highest-priority interior forest and wildlife connectivity areas — an ecologically rich landscape of northern hardwood and mixed-wood forest, streams, vernal pools, and mountain views.
The Pratt Refuge is located on Ward Hill Road off Route 100 between Waterbury and Waitsfield. Registrations are requested to help with event planning and because of limited parking. Sign up by June 2 at vlt.org/events and contact Sam Graulty with questions or to reserve an accessible parking spot:
The entrance to the Refuge is just over two miles from Route 100, on the left. Because of parking constraints, visitors are requested to carpool if possible. Harwood Union High School is 2.6 miles away and convenient for carpooling. On Ward Hill Road, visitors are requested to park on the side of the road and be mindful of driveways to minimize inconvenience to neighbors.
The highlight will be the ribbon cutting for a new universally accessible trail that takes visitors directly from the parking area on a loop through woodland with improved bird habitat. New interpretive signs along the trail offer information on specific forest birds that visitors may see or hear, and on forest management practices that support healthy bird habitat and thriving ecosystems.
An existing trail through a birding meadow has been improved with the addition of wooden footbridges in wet areas. The lower birding meadow, regularly used during birding events, is a popular birding spot. The celebration will also open a new trail that climbs up to a lookout with views of Camel’s Hump.
The land is open to the public.
Schedule: June 4, 4 to 6 p.m. (rain date: June 11)
- Ribbon cutting and introductory remarks
- Guided walks:
- Tour of new accessible trail with interpretive signs about birds
- Hike on new trail to lookout with a view of Camel’s Hump
- Bird walk through the birding meadow
- Refreshments
These trail and habitat projects were made possible with funding from Vermont Forest, Parks and Recreation’s Recreational Trails Program, Athletic Brewing’s Two for the Trails Program, and Cornell University’s Land Trust Bird Conservation Initiative. They also benefited from the expertise of crews from the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps who worked on trails and habitat improvements, Timber & Stone, LLC who completed the trail design, Rabbit Track Trail Works, LLC who completed construction of the accessible trail, and Max Popowicz, VLT’s property manager who completed the bird habitat improvements.
