BIG PLANS FOR TOWN FOREST
By Natalie Jackson
There are many places in the St. Albans area that give residents the opportunity to lead a healthy lifestyle. One of the town’s favorites is their very own 162 acre Town Forest. The Town Forest is located on Forest Drive, off of French Hill Road in St. Albans.
Recently, St. Albans’ Town Parks and Recreational Department has been teaming up with RiseVT and the Franklin County Mountain Bike Club to expand the paths and promote them to the public. Although the plans have been brought up for discussion for about ten years, the plans are just now starting to come into action.
Franklin and Grand Isle County Forester, Nancy Patch, says their goal is “to engage the community more on the town forest and open it up for the uses that people want.”
With the help of RiseVT and the Franklin County Mountain Bike Club, the town has been able to promote the forest as a place for people to hike, mountain bike, walk, run, bird watch, snowshoe and cross country ski.
“We are trying to expand the recreational opportunities within the town,” says Carrie Johnson, the town manager in St. Albans. “We want to increase the use of the town forest too.” The town is creating trails with trail maps for all skill levels in hopes to reach out to a broader audience.
The St. Albans Town has been working a lot with Sinuosity to ensure the trails can be the built in the best way possible for the community. Sinuosity, LLC is a trail development company able to provide professional services for every aspect of a trail project. With their help, the trails are sure to highlight the forest’s most beautiful aspects and ensure that the trails are enjoyable too.
To do this, they began with cleaning up the trails that were already there before they begin to branch out to build more.
“They are making sure that there are drainage and good stones in the place where there needs to be and making sure the trails are located in an area where it is conducive to family biking and hiking,” Patch says regarding the plans.
Patch says with high hopes that the trails will not only be used for biking and hiking. Bridget Butler, Bird Diva naturalist, and a member of the St. Albans Town Parks and Recreation Committee will be leading bird watching walks to point out bird habitat enhancement, and Patch herself will do walks demonstrating the forest’s ecology and plant life. Both of them hope to bring people around to show them about those possibilities too.
Despite the St. Albans Town’s financial lead on the project, the town’s Parks and Recreational Department is seeking new alternatives and grants that will help with the funding. Ultimately, the town’s taxpayers have been the ones supporting the minor improvements up until recently when the town was approved for a grant just last year. The grant allows the town to do “a comprehensive trail plan.”
With an estimate of approximately $60,000, the town is still hoping to receive more grants. “We’re seeking support from both private and public entities…We’re at that stage where we know what we want to do; we just have to figure out how to pay for it,” Johnson states.
To receive the grant they are hoping for, the town must raise twenty percent of the total. RiseVT has been a tremendous help in funding the project, but the town is still hoping for help from others too.
Although no real committee is focused specifically on the Town Forest yet, RiseVT, the Franklin County Mountain Bike Club, the St. Albans Town Parks and Recreation Department, and many concerned citizens have been a tremendous help in taking proper care of the trails and the maintenance of the area.
Last year the Mountain Bike Club rounded up about 25 volunteers together to help clean up the trails over the span of a couple of days. Last fall, RiseVT also sponsored an event that pulled together many families from the area to help clear the trails of branches and trees as well as show others where the trails are. They provided refreshments and encouraged the citizens to explore the area and discover all of the possibilities that the trails could bring.
Together, the two groups have been a huge help in completing a trail inventory and a new trail construction inventory of the forest.
This fall, the St. Albans Parks and Recreation Committee is hoping to host an event that will allow people to walk together on the trails with Patch and Butler so that the community can get a better look at the trails.
Assuming that the grants are to pass this fall, Butler says the plans for the trail expansion should be completely finished in 2017.
Although they have different ways of how to go about the trail maintenance and construction, their goal is to accomplish it all in one year in order to not disrupt or scare the wildlife off from returning every couple of years.
“We are excited to get people out on the property,” Butler says joyfully. “I am always more than willing to take people up there!”
