Woods Walk to highlight 50 years of intensive hardwood management

Join the Vermont Woodlands Association for a Woods Walk on Saturday, October 15. The walk will highlight the over 50 years of intensive hardwood management at Hawkes Tree Farm in Woodstock. The property is owned and managed by Gerry Hawkes.

Mr. Hawkes has practiced intensive hardwood management on his 43-acre property since he purchased it in 1969. Mr. Hawkes will lead the walk and share the work done on the property through the years and its successful results. The work has transformed the property from being overstocked with low-quality trees to a healthier woodland with well-spaced, high-quality timber.

Mr. Hawkes is a professional forester who, in the past, has managed about 30,000 acres for private clients in Vermont and served as a consultant on USAID, World Bank, and United Nations projects in Africa and Asia.

The event will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and take place rain or shine, so attendees are encouraged to dress appropriately in good hiking shoes. Hawkes Tree Farm is located at 796 Wayside Road

Extension, Woodstock, VT 05091. Since GPS is not always reliable in getting to the tree farm, detailed directions are listed below.
From Woodstock:
Take Route 12 North out of Woodstock. Set an odometer at the iron-sided bridge on the edge of town. Go approximately 3.5 miles on Route 12. Look for Wayside Road, a gravel road on the left, which immediately crosses a small brook next to Route 12. The first place you will see on this road is the former River Bend garden center in a green-roofed barn with greenhouses in the back.

After about a mile, the town road will cross a dam on a pond. Keep going straight on Wayside Road Ext. Go approximately one mile up this road (do NOT turn right after the pond). Where the town road takes a sharp left, you continue straight through a gap in the stone walls where the #796 and the name Gerry Hawkes are on a mailbox. Go by the log piles, and we will park and meet in front of the 4-bay shop.

From Bethel:

Take Route 12 South by Silver Lake and Barnard General Store. From Barnard General Store, continue about 6 miles south on Route 12. Look for Wayside Road, a gravel road on the right, which immediately crosses a small brook next to Route 12. The first place you will see on this road is the former River Bend garden center in a green-roofed barn with greenhouses in the back.

After about a mile, the town road will cross a dam on a pond. Keep going straight on Wayside Road Ext. Go approximately one mile up this road (do NOT turn right after the pond). Where the town road takes a sharp left, you continue straight through a gap in the stone walls where the #796 and the name Gerry Hawkes is on a mailbox. Go by the log piles, and we will park and meet in front of the 4-bay shop.