Williams Woods

Mar 19

Williams Woods is a mature valley clayplain forest in the Champlain Valley and it’s a Nature Conservancy property. I’ve ridden by this forest on my bike several times, aware from seeing it in passing that it’s a mature forest, but this is the first time I’ve been in it. The forest is a very diverse ecosystem and home to a lot of very old and large trees, including white oak, red oak, red maple, white pine, shagbark hickory and white ash. Associated species include hemlock, sugar maple, beech and bur oak. There are many snags and nurse logs and while I’m not sure this is technically old growth, it has the appearance of it. While this forest type once covered thousands of acres in the Champlain Valley, woodlands like these are now rare. The flat trail through the forest is about a mile, although it took us about 2 hours to walk it as we inspected many of the trees and I took a lot of photos. I’m very curious to see what wild flowers emerge later this spring.