Elevate Your Perspective!
Something For Everyone
The Forest Canopy Walk complements VINS’ mission and enhances its world-class environmental education for visitors. Designed so people of all levels of ability can enjoy it, this new ADA-accessible feature, offers every generation a new perspective and way to experience the beauty of the landscape.
The landscape of VINS’ 47-acre property is perfectly suited to allow people to gain elevation without the need for stairs or steep ramps. Because the land drops in elevation as it slopes toward the backwater of the Ottauquechee River, we've built a boardwalk that remains relatively level while the land drops away beneath. At the highest points, visitors are over 100 feet above the forest floor getting eye-to-eye with tiny warblers, woodpeckers and squirrels!
Access to the Forest Canopy Walk is included with General Admission to the VINS Nature Center.
Special Features
The Walk provides an opportunity to move from the forest floor to treetops without a climb. Connecting to the existing McKnight Trail, the Walk can be reached by a combination of ground-level trail and a newly constructed, ADA-accessible boardwalk. The increase in elevation from the start of the trail to the entrance is minimal to accommodate the greatest diversity of visitors.
Three special features and five Interpretation Nodes are built into the Walk. The Eagle’s Nest is a spur off the main walk. It is built on two levels, with the upper level being an oversized nest that visitors can climb into and see the world from an eagle’s vantage point. The Tree House is an elevated structure on one corner of the Walk built with several levels that are reached by a helical stair system.
With the Forest Canopy Walk, your perspective will be completely altered!
Reach above the treetops! Designed to bring people higher into the canopy, the Tree House provides visitors with a 360-degree view of the surrounding landscape.
Tree House
Channel your inner arachnid and crawl across the Spider Web. Are you brave enough to suspend yourself 43-feet above the forest floor?
Spider Web
Step up to this platform and be greeted by two handcrafted, iron bald eagles. Look out to the river below and experience what it is like to be in a true eagle’s nest.
Eagle's Nest
The Forest Canopy Walk is ADA-accessible, allowing visitors of all abilities and ages to get eye level with the treetops.
Accessibility
Encounter magnificent works of art by local artists that adorn the Forest Canopy Walk.
Art
Discover how important forests are: you’ll read about forest layers, eco-friendly forestry, how maple syrup is made, and more all while being surrounded by a dynamic deciduous forest.
Education
Exciting Elements
The Tree House is designed to bring people higher into the canopy and reach above the treetops, providing visitors with a 360-degree view of the surrounding countryside.
Integrated into a portion of the Walk is the Giant Spider Web (20 feet in diameter), which gives the visitor the chance to lie in wait, or walk across a woven web high above the ground. Fitted with three layers of netting to protect users, the open weave permits visitors to see down to the forest floor.
There are four other nodes on the Walk, encouraging visitors to engage with a variety of forest facts and experiences from sight and sound to contemplation of the forest.
We are all used to walking through the forest and looking up to see the birds and leaves, but rarely do many of us have the opportunity to see those same things at eye level or while looking down.
For more information about the VINS Forest Canopy Walk, please reach out to info@vinsweb.org.
How It Was Made
The VINS Forest Canopy Walk was built in order to have a unique educational exhibit unlike anything else in Vermont or New Hampshire.
In this booklet, you will learn how this $1.7 million project came to fruition with the help of VINS Staff, Volunteers, the Board of Trustees, and many supportive donors.
Mission Green Award
Presented by Dr. Margaret “Canopy Meg” Lowman, VINS was given a Platinum Plaque from Mission Green, a new program whose mission it is to save 10 of the world’s most endangered forests by 2030 through the creation of canopy walkways.