Gifford Woods State Park

Gifford Woods State Park sits at the base of Pico Peak, less than 3km from the Killington Access Road, and contains one of the most accessible and beautiful campgrounds in Vermont. The park is best known for its old-growth hardwood stand — a small grove of ancient maple, beech, and ash on the eastern edge of the park that has never been logged. The contrast with the second-growth forest surrounding it is dramatic even to an untrained eye.

The park is also the trailhead for several routes into the Green Mountain backcountry, and the Appalachian Trail passes right through it — one of the few places in Vermont where you can walk to an AT trailhead without a car. In autumn, the old-growth maples turn a deep crimson that is a different colour from the surrounding trees; it is among the best foliage viewing in the state.

things to do sight
A story
Gifford Woods contains one of the last remaining old-growth hardwood forests in Vermont — a tiny remnant of the forest that once covered the entire state before 19th-century agriculture cleared most of it. The trees in the old-growth section are 300 to 400 years old, with sugar maples and yellow beeches that would have been saplings when the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts.