Equinox Highlands Natural Area

There is no TNC trail on Mother Myrick Mountain. There is, however, a network of unmarked logging roads that can lead adventurous hikers, snowshoers and cross-country skiers to the summit of Mother Myrick or through the notch to Sandgate. If you walk a half-mile up Beartown Road from Three Maple Drive in Manchester, you’ll see TNC’s boundary signs. From there you can orienteer to the top of Mother Myrick Mountain with a topo map and compass. 

Alternatively, you can hike the marked trails on Equinox Preservation Trust land at Mount Equinox. One place to catch these trails is the farthest parking lot behind the Equinox hotel in Manchester Village. At the back the parking lot is a kiosk with trail maps and information.

The Pew Trail is a gentle 1.3-mile loop trail meandering through rich northern hardwood forests. Along the way you may see remnants of an old sugaring operation. Pew Forest Trail provides a new access point on the mountain that could one day be linked to ten miles of existing trails within the 850 acre Equinox Preserve (owned by Equinox Resort and protected by a TNC and Vermont Land Trust conservation easement).

Hikers can now track their position while exploring our trails using the Avenza Maps app on their smartphones. To learn how to record your route, drop placemarks, and more using the Avenza Maps app, please see our Avenza How-to Guide and download the natural area's trail map. 

Please read our Preserve Visitation Guidelines.

What to See: Plants

The rich northern hardwood forest is a distinct subtype of northern hardwood forest that includes sugar maple, white ash, basswood, black birch and many other tree species. The best examples of rich woods are located on steep slopes and coves with calcium-rich soils. The east flanks of Mother Myrick and Mount Equinox are ideal places to eye the profusion of spring wildflowers that covers the forest floor.

As you hike on the many old roads on Mount Equinox, you’ll come across a rich northern hardwood forest, and as you climb, you’ll enter a montane yellow-birch-red spruce woodland, which is a characteristic forest for this moderate elevation, consisting of paper birch, balsam fir, pin cherry, yellow birch and red spruce. A montane spruce-fir forest dominates the summit of Mount Equinox.

What to See: Animals

The Highlands are home to two species of globally rare bats (the Indiana bat and the eastern small-footed bat), the rare peregrine falcon and many common, wide-ranging species like black bear, bobcat, and neotropical migrant birds.