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Cobb Hill Trails
Hartland, VT
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Uses: hiking, snowshoeing, and skiing.
Part of one trail is shared by snowmobiles.
Please Read this before visiting this trail...
Map of this trail
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Cobb Hill Farm and Cohousing
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The year-round trails at Cobb Hill Farm feature agricultural fields, open pasture, active sugarbush, and mature forest. A visit provides an opportunity to observe a working farm reminiscent of those found in early New England. From the upper pastures there are excellent views across the Connecticut River Valley. Groomed ski trails, both flatland and challenging, steeper routes, are part of a network of over 23 kilometers of trails maintained by the Hartland Winter Trails association.
Cobb Hill Farm is the site of the Cobb Hill Cohousing community occupying 23 units of tightly-clustered housing on four acres of land in the southeast corner of the property. The cohousing group has owned the land since 1997, when it purchased adjoining farms from Will and Jane Curtis and John and Barbara Hunt. Both properties had been farmed for over 200 years, but at the time were threatened by the same pattern of subdivision and development that had already taken place on a portion of the Hunt’s farm and much of the surrounding agricultural land. Cobb Hill Cohousing members, with a strong commitment to sustainability and stewardship, continue to farm the land using organic methods, and have placed the bulk of their acreage under conservation easement with the Upper Valley Land Trust.
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From Hartland, follow Route 12 to Hartland Four Corners and turn right onto Mace Hill Road. In about a quarter of a mile take the first left onto Linden Road, entering the Cobb Hill Cohousing property, with its barns and silos directly ahead. Parking is to the right, across from the sheep barn.
Exploring Cobb Hill
The story of Cobb Hill is, inextricably, a story of Donella “Dana” Meadows. Dana was a pioneering environmental scientist and writer, lead author of the international bestselling book The Limits to Growth, published in 1972 and of the twenty-year follow-up study, Beyond the Limits (1992). She was a leading voice in what has become known as the "sustainability movement," an international effort to reverse damaging trends in the environment, economy, and social systems. Her work is widely recognized as a formative influence on hundreds of other academic studies, government policy initiatives, and international agreements.
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Ewes and lambs
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Harvest on Cobb Hill Farm
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In the mid-1980’s Dana Meadows was one of a small group of people who came together to found the Upper Valley Land Trust. Dana became the first Chair of UVLT’s Board of Trustees, serving on the board for five years. In 1997, Dana and several others worked tirelessly to bring Cobb Hill Cohousing into being, and it was she who worked with UVLT on behalf of the group to conserve Cobb Hill Farm. The conservation easement was completed in the spring of 2001, one month after Dana’s sudden and unexpected death. The project brought together two organizations that Dana helped to create and reflects her commitment to stewardship of natural resources, local food production, and community life.
Cobb Hill Cohousing is an intentional community of people committed to sustainable living. The individual housing units are designed according to “green building” principles – environmentally sustainable and energy efficient to the extent feasible. At the entrance to the Cobb Hill Farm is a farm stand that seasonally sells cheese, eggs, flowers, vegetables, and maple syrup produced on the property. Produce is also sold as part of a community supported agriculture (CSA) program, with over 80 subscribers receiving organic vegetables and flowers from a 7-acre garden every week from June through October. The Cobb Hill Farm buildings combine a gambrel-roofed barn and attached accessory sheds, a style popular in the 1930’s and 40’s and becoming increasingly rare in the Vermont landscape. The barn and outbuildings house sheep, dairy cattle, horses, and chickens.
The Vermont Housing and Conservation Board (VHCB) provided funding for UVLT’s purchase of development rights on the Cobb Hill Farm’s 245 acres of fields and woodlands, bringing together in a single project VHCB’s twin goals of conservation and affordable housing. Cobb Hill Cohousing made a significant contribution to the project by selling development rights to the land for about half their market value. The income from sale of the development rights subsidized three perpetually affordable cohousing units for lower income families.
At the entrance to Cobb Hill in a farmhouse to the left is the Sustainability Institute, a non-profit research and education organization, also started by Dana Meadows, and devoted to promotion of sustainable economic, environmental, and social systems. The Sustainability Institute is separate from, but closely linked to Cobb Hill Cohousing.
In exploring the property in winter, tracked ski trails should be easy to follow. The trails are groomed by volunteers, so if you see someone working on the trails while you are out skiing, give a wave and a smile of thanks. Snowshoers should travel to the side of the prepared ski track. The rest of the year hikers can walk between two fences on a grassy walkway in the middle of the agricultural field, cross through a gap in an electric fence at the far end of the field, and turn left, following the edge of the field to a corner where the Hartland Winter Trails association maintains a trail registry with ski trail maps. Hikers can follow the ski trail beyond a stone wall and leading uphill across a pasture through the sugarbush. Marking and maintenance of other hiking trails is planned for the near future. Flatland ski trail loops leading off to the right towards Sugar Brook are for winter use only.
Trail winds through maples strung with tubing
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Following the main ski trail from the ski trail registry box, you will pass through agricultural fields and over pasture land, entering the woods through a metal gate in a gap in a stone wall. The trail winds uphill through an extensive sugarbush of mature and healthy maples rigged out in tightly strung blue and green plastic tubing, feeding in to thicker black plastic pipes, which themselves drain into holding tanks. The hillside calls to mind a description by the late Dartmouth English professor and local rural philosopher Noel Perrin in his 1972 book Amateur Sugar Maker, of a modern sugarbush looking just “like the intensive-care unit of some outdoor hospital.” Cobb Hill puts out about 1,300 taps, and in an average season produces over 200 gallons of syrup.
Farther on the trail comes back out into the pasture, with a sign pointing up the hill to the Donella Meadows memorial stone bench. At the top of the pasture, under a spreading tree is a stone bench with splendid views looking out over the farm and hills that Dana loved – a fitting reminder of the ongoing legacy of her commitment to conservation and stewardship of natural resources.
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Donella Meadows Memorial Bench
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View from the stone bench |
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An additional note of interest about the property comes from Jane and Will Curtis, former owners of one of the two original farms that make up Cobb Hill Farm. Will Curtis is widely known as a naturalist, author, and former host of the nationally syndicated National Pubic Radio program “The Nature of Things.” The Curtises heard for years rumors that their house had been a station on the Underground Railroad. Indeed, their cellar contained a mysterious crawlspace that they could not otherwise account for. While the Underground Railroad story has never been substantiated; it is known that a freed African American woman lived with the family there and died in the house. The rest of her story is lost to history and can only be left to the imagination.
Links:
Cobb Hill Cohousing: www.cobbhill.org
Hartland Winter Trails: www.hartlandwintertrails.org
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Download a high resolution map in PDF format, suitable for printing
View a bigger version of the map on screen
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Trail Use Guidelines
• Carry out what you carry in.
• Stay on the trail and use only designated trailhead parking areas.
• Stay off trails during spring melt, when soils are soft and easily eroded.
• Be respectful of other trail users and be courteous to trail neighbors.
• Control your dog(s). Do not allow dogs to disturb livestock, wildlife, or sensitive natural areas. Pets are not allowed on some trails.
• Close farm gates behind you.
• For your safety during hunting seasons, wear blaze orange.
• Follow Leave No Trace guidelines.
While these trails are available for community use free of charge, their maintenance depends on the good stewardship and financial support of users. Donations for the trail program may be sent to: Trails, Upper Valley Land Trust, 19 Buck Road, Hanover, NH 03755.
Please contact UVLT Stewardship Manager Jay Waldner (603-643-6626)
to report trail maintenance needs or recommendations.
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