Tim's Trail - The Nature Conservancy

Please note: it has been reported that the trail may be inaccessible due to flooding. Please check with the preserve for updated information. It is hard to imagine a more inspiring piece of Vermont landscape than the Helen W. Buckner Memorial Preserve. Encircled by the southernmost end of Lake Champlain to the west and south, the Poultney River to the east, and Bald Mountain to the north, this is an isolated piece of rural Vermont not reached by a road until 1934. Today, it remains a less visited part of the state, where rare snakes, peregrine falcons, and five-lined skinks (the only lizard found in the state) still outnumber human visitors. The Buckner Preserve is the most ecologically diverse natural area managed by the Conservancy in Vermont, and is home to 11 uncommon or rare-in-Vermont animal species, 18 species of rare or uncommon plants, and at least 15 distinct natural community types. Here paddlers can explore undeveloped Lake Champlain shoreline, the secluded twists and turns of the Lower Poultney River, and, in high water, floodplain forests and marshes. Trail walkers can move quickly from the lake and river shore, up through gently rolling hay meadows, cross stony talus slopes, and ascend cliffs topped by a dry oak-hickory-hophornbeam forest. From the cliffs there are sweeping vistas of the narrowing south end of Lake Champlain, the Poultney River, and lake-influenced wetlands. Bald Mountain adds its indomitable character to the preserve with its stark cliffs and talus slopes, home to peregrine falcon nests and a unique assemblage of amphibians and reptiles found nowhere else in Vermont.