This story by Patrick Bilow was first published in the Stowe Reporter on Oct. 30, 2025.
Riding trails in Kirchner Woods on Taber Hill Road Thursday morning, Louis Arevalo noticed the smell of rain-soaked cedars and decaying leaves melting into the ground.
Long a locals’ hangout for lunch rides and dog walks, these trails just became a lot more accessible through minimal upgrades. Arevalo is an adaptive rider from Essex who rides a recumbent, hand-powered bike. He’s known for tackling terrain some able-bodied riders would shake their heads at, but today he’s taking flow laps with his dog Ozul, smelling cedars and leaves and giving feedback to Stowe’s trail ambassadors about the upgrades.
“I can ride more advanced terrain,” Arevalo said. “But it’s nice to have gentle terrain for everybody to either learn on or just play together on.”
It didn’t take much to make the Kirchner trails more accessible — mostly widening bridges and removing some rocks — but there’s a massive payout as people of all ages and abilities can now enjoy them. Arevalo especially likes how the trails still feel natural, with roots and non-threatening rocks making the ride interesting, but not necessarily technical.
“The number one question we received about this project was, ‘Is this going to become another Cady Hill?’ And the answer is, ‘No,’” Caroline Loeb, stewardship director with the Stowe Land Trust, said. “We’re not smoothing trails in the same way. Cady Hill serves a very different purpose. The goal here is to keep the rugged natural beauty while providing better access.”
According to Kenzie Brunner, executive director of the Stowe Trails Partnership, Stowe has some of the best accessible riding terrain in Vermont — and she would know. In her prior role with the Vermont Mountain Bike Association, she traveled the state taking inventories of these types of trails.
Since the formation of the Trail Accessibility Hub through the Vermont Trails and Greenways Council in 2023, which dispersed $600,000 in Vermont to assess and upgrade as many trails as possible, towns like Stowe have been expanding their accessible terrain to the point where some zones no longer distinguish between an accessible and non-accessible trail.
Kirchner Woods is the latest trail network in Stowe to receive this treatment. Charlie’s Bypass and Eagle Ridge in Cady Hill have seen the biggest changes, and Stowe Trails is currently planning another beginner and adaptive-friendly trail behind Stowe Village Inn.
For Staub, Brunner and Tom Rogers, executive director of the Stowe Land Trust, the Kirchner project highlights the potential of local partnerships.
The Land Trust owns Kirchner Woods, and according to Staub, the group identified its trails for accessibility upgrades years ago. Acting as a conduit to state funds, the Land Trust contracted Stowe Trails to perform the upgrades. Nicole Corriveau, an AmeriCorps member whose time with the land trust ended this year, worked closely with Stowe Trails on construction. There were even a handful of successful volunteer trail days.
Riding is only permitted on trails in the bottom half of Kirchner Woods, but the area is still a hotbed of activity for hollow residents and visitors alike.
“It’s beautiful in there,” Jeff Alexander said. He works with Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports and helped Stowe Trails assess the changes that needed to be made in Kirchner.
Like many old mountain bike trails in Stowe, the system in Kirchner was built decades ago by former resident Hardy Avery. They’re beloved trails, Brunner said, and they haven’t changed that much.
“Recreation is such a well-loved and well-engrained thing in the state,” Staub said. “And we’re saying, like, ‘We’ve already done some of the work of making these places public and putting the trails in,’ but they’re not serving everybody. So how can we all collectively change that? I think it’s an across-the-board phenomenon.”
Seeing the falls
The Mill Trail to Bingham Falls is also getting an accessibility makeover. Owned by the Stowe Land Trust, the trail is short and not intended for mountain biking, but it’s extremely popular and dangerous for some people.
According to Rogers, Stowe Mountain Rescue, of which he is a member, responds to Bingham Falls seven or eight times a season. From a Google Maps perspective, it’s just a short jaunt from Route 100 to the majestic crashing falls, but the trail is steep with several hazards.
The calls are mostly non-emergent — lots of twisted ankles and busted legs — but some are more complex, with people trying to navigate areas where “they could really hurt themselves,” Rogers said.
Stowe Land Trust is midway through an accessibility project in the area. So far, they’ve replaced culverts with bridges and removed dangerous hazards. Rogers said the motivation is twofold — to improve flood resiliency and create a universally accessible trail.
“It’s just such a beautiful falls and a lot of people want to see it,” Rogers said. “Our goal is to open up the outdoors and nature, especially in some of these really high-profile beautiful spots, to people of all abilities.”
