Town forest offers trails and glimpses of Vermont history

The Ashley Community Forest is home to woodland trails and scores of spectacular trees, many of them maples and black locust. Visitors can investigate old cellar holes and stone walls. They’ll also find the remnants of two wells, giant stone culverts, and a sugar house foundation.

Established in 2022, this community forest is new, and trails are still being built, but it joins a proud tradition of community forests that is as old as New England itself. What makes it unique is that it straddles two towns: Sharon and Strafford. The towns manage the land together.