What Are Alpine Zones?

Alpine zones of the Northeast are biologically diverse, isolated, and rare ecozones found above treeline on some of the highest points of the region’s mountains. These zones are characterized by harsh winds and colder temperatures. Alpine areas provide us with a look back in time to what the landscape was like after the glaciers melted at the end of the last ice age 15,000 years ago.

Here, you’ll find tundra plants similar to those found in the Arctic Circle even though we are much farther south in latitude. Alpine zones provide important habitat for plants and wildlife that have adapted to survive in tough alpine zone conditions, several of which are considered endangered or threatened species.

Although resilient to the harsh winds, cold temperatures, and acidic soil of their environment, alpine plants are vulnerable to other disturbances, including by human recreation. These plants can take a long time to grow in such an exposed environment but can some have long lifespans if protected from human activity (some individual plants and cushions are over 100 years old!). Aside from preserving them for their rarity, they are also important to the mountain ecosystem because their roots hold down soil and otherwise curb erosion at these altitudes.

Vermont’s Alpine Zones

Across New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, there are about 13 square miles of alpine zone. In Vermont, less than 125 acres of alpine tundra remains. Within those acres, eight alpine species are classified as either endangered (4) or threatened (4) in Vermont.

Three of the Green Mountain’s tallest peaks are home to the state’s alpine areas. Approximately 110 acres are found on Mount Mansfield, about 10 acres on Camel’s Hump, and less than 1 acre on Mt. Abraham. These three peaks are also some of the state’s most popular and well-hiked destinations and traversed by the Long Trail.

Alpine zones are widely enjoyed for recreation, so as a hiker, it’s crucial to educate yourself and others about the environment’s importance, fragility and vulnerability, and what you can do to help protect alpine zones.

Our Stewardship Principles

GMC is committed to responsibly managing GMC conservation lands and easements. Properties owned by the club are managed for high quality recreation, conservation of natural resources, and sustainable timber management. Timber harvests on GMC land have been used to enhance wildlife habitat, provide revenue for the Club’s work, and supply firewood for our visitor center, which used wood gasification boilers for heat and hot water until 2025.

Volunteer Corridor Monitoring Program

More than 60 volunteers adopt conserved lands and monitor their assigned property each year. Volunteers maintain boundaries and keep watch over the trail corridor, ensuring that potential issues are documented and addressed by the land manager. This unique volunteer role involves bushwhacking, map and compass navigation, and immersion in Vermont’s backcountry landscape. These volunteers help GMC achieve its goal of monitoring every mile of boundary, every year.

A.T. Open Areas Initiative

Vermont’s rich agricultural history has left a unique mark on the Appalachian Trail through a series of open areas that enrich the trail experience and habitat diversity of the region. The Green Mountain Club, Appalachian Trail Conservancy, and U.S. Forest Service have partnered to maintain 19 “open areas,” on the Appalachian Trail between Killington and Norwich, through mowing, grazing, and sometimes controlled burning, with the goal of keeping the views open for hikers, maintaining early successional habitat, and suppressing invasive plants.

Future of Stewardship: GMC’s Conservation Road Map

Adopted in 2023, the Strategic Conservation Plan provides a plan to maintain the momentum of Long Trail Protection efforts, and to ensure stewardship of our existing properties is upheld amidst a complex and changing landscape.

New England’s Trails: Legacy and Challenge 

Hikers often joke that switchbacks don’t exist in New England, and it’s kind of true! Many trails in Vermont, and New England as a whole, were built more than 100 years ago before sustainable design standards or other environmental impacts of human recreation were even considered. They tend to follow the “fall-line” of a hill, or in other words, the steepest, straightest route from point A (the trailhead) to point B (a summit).  

Fall-line trails pose challenges for two reasons. One, water also likes to take the fall-line path down a hill. When the trail is the same path as the route of least resistance for water, the water accumulates and accelerates, exacerbating erosion as it goes. 

Second, fall-line trails are often very steep, with grades exceeding 15 to 20 percent, and pose challenges for many hikers, with big necessary steps and tiring climbs. Hikers are naturally prone to seek out the path of least resistance, so they might tend to go around difficult sections, widening and braiding the trail and causing additional erosion issues.  

Sustainable Trails Assessment  

In 2025, thanks to a generous grant from the Waterwheel Foundation, we undertook a trail assessment effort for the entire 272 miles of the Long Trail examining it through a sustainable trail design lens. We took a two-pronged approach of creating a desk assessment tool utilizing Geographic Information System (GIS) tools and analysis and field data collection of trail deficiencies. 

The GIS assessment provided approaches to data analysis that allowed us to assign sustainability values to the trail while our field data collection was contrasted with the GIS model predictions.   The initial version of the model had a 80-85% accuracy rate for predicting trail deficiencies. As we refine the data analysis we will expand the assessment to the entire Long Trail System.   

This will give us a georeferenced database for planning, reporting, and communication. It will guide prioritization of investments in the trail to help remedy those areas that are most at risk of failure from future intense weather events. It will improve our ability to respond rapidly and manage information after an event. And it will inform our work plan for the next 25 years as it is adopted by staff, volunteers and partners. 

Rehabilitate or Relocate 

There are two major approaches to upgrading the sustainability of degraded, historic trails often found on the Long Trail System. We can do full-segment rehabilitation following the existing route of the trail, employing crews to install hundreds of stone trail structures like checksteps, staircases, and waterbars. Working on an entire segment of trail at once, like the 2.1-mile Burrows Trail restoration, ensures that severe weather or trail failures above a work zone do not negatively impact or negate new work. 

Full-scale rehab is effective, though costly and time-consuming. It makes the most sense in cases where relocation is not an option. Often, relocating a portion of trail and re-routing it to include sustainable grades, cross-slopes, and other sustainable trail design elements may have a similar cost and crew time associated with in-tread rehabilitation. That is another avenue we are exploring for major sustainable trails upgrade projects and the future of the Long Trail System.  

By employing both of these techniques for major overhauls, we can learn about the most practical sustainable trails solutions for the nuanced needs of the legacy Long Trail System, and put them into practice statewide. 

Backcountry Infrastructure and Construction 

With climate change, Vermont is seeing more intense rain events with higher rainfall and water levels. Many backcountry bridges are no longer big enough to survive during flash flood conditions. GMC, along with its partners at state and federal land management agencies, are making informed decisions about where to replace damaged bridges and where to return to a natural crossing. 

Hikers should be aware that not all water crossings have bridges, and in times of high water an alternate route may need to be secured. Where funding is available for bridge replacement, GMC is committed to installing bigger, more durable styles that will stay above high water lines expected in the future.