Acorn Hill: My Spot at Home – Thanksgiving Break
Traveling back home for Thanksgiving break I chose one of my old stomping grounds in high school, acorn hill. This spot is very special to me because it was the place where my friend group and I used to camp at during the summer. There is an old stone chimney that is all that is left of an old cabin that used to be up on the hill which burned down a few decades ago. I went back up there with some friends over break and camped overnight and made a fire in the chimney.
The phenology of Acorn Hill is actually quite similar to my spot at Salmon Hole in Winooski. There are numerous tall grasses and shrubs, including buckthorn and occasionally milkweed during the summer. Because of this, I’ve seen a few monarch butterflies while camping. There are many more oak trees at the top of Acorn Hill than at Salmon Hole, but both sites share populations of American beech and sugar maple. As a gift, my friends and I spent time doing a little trail work on the way up to the camping site and back the next morning. We moved fallen sticks and larger branches off of the trail that blocked or obstructed it.