Split Rock Wildway

Essex, NY 405 acres Visitor Guidelines Download Map

The Split Rock Wildway is an ambitious effort to create a wildlife corridor connecting Lake Champlain the high peaks of New York’s Adirondack Mountains.

The goal of the Split Rock Wildway is habitat connectivity—making sure wild creatures have room to roam. Northeast Wilderness Trust has protected nine parcels in Essex, NY, and continues to focus on this region. Within the Wildway project area, roughly 6,000 acres are permanently conserved already, including public lands of the Adirondack Forest Preserve, and tracts secured by the Northeast Wilderness Trust and other nonprofits. This is a promising start toward restoring and protecting the rich biological diversity and wildlife habitat of this area, while also supporting local communities.

The Trust is currently leading a multi-partner effort to develop and implement a strategic conservation action plan for the Wildway, including an expansion of the Wildway to Vermont. This expanded, transboundary effort aims to conserve a critical landscape linkage in the Northern Appalachian-Acadian ecoregion as a strategy for conserving biodiversity and adapting to climate change.

Our Split Rock Wildway Preserve is open to quiet recreation and limited hunting. If you are interested in hunting permission for Split Rock Wildway, please visit our Hunting Program page.

“My family feels that the transfer to Northeast Wilderness Trust was a positive action, protecting the woodland area for the future, and allowing it to become part of the Split Rock Wildway” Norma Goff

To date, the Northeast Wilderness Trust has protected nine properties within the Split Rock Wildway focus area. The Wilderness Trust owns six of these properties, and holds forever-wild conservation easements on the other three. Explore each property’s unique history and features below!

Goff Preserve

In May 2016, Northeast Wilderness Trust purchased the Goff Preserve in Essex, NY for permanent protection as a small but key piece in the heart of the Split Rock Wildway. These 27 acres are in the vicinity of other NWT-protected lands and advance the vision of a connected wildway from the High Peaks of the Adirondacks to Lake Champlain.

A place of complex terrain, diverse woodlands, and superb wildlife habitat, the Goff Preserve also protects part of a regionally significant landscape. The preserve is suitable habitat for the sharp-shinned hawk (a species of special concern in New York State), whose long tail and short, rounded wings enable it to dart through woodlands in pursuit of prey. Several large eastern hemlocks on the property are home to porcupine; the hemlock stands are also outstanding winter habitat for white-tailed deer. The Goff Preserve contains a pocket ravine, numerous seeps, and a tributary of the North Branch of the Boquet River.

“My family feels that the transfer to Northeast Wilderness Trust was a positive action, protecting the woodland area for the future, and allowing it to become part of the Split Rock Wildway,” says Norma Goff. “As such, we are hopeful that trails can be developed in the future, providing better public access. Thank you for making this possible.” We thank the Goff family for their vision of a wild future for this land. One more puzzle piece secured!

Thanks to the Sustainable Future Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation and The Eddy Foundation for significant support, as well as to the New York State Conservation Partnership Program, which provided a conservation transaction grant for the Goff Preserve.

Stream at Goff Preserve

Wetland at Brookfield Headwaters

Mushroom at Northwest Boquet Mountain

Maidenhair fern

Rowe

The Northeast Wilderness Trust purchased this parcel in March 2008 with the help of local partner The Eddy Foundation. The property is part of the Split Rock Wildway and The Nature Conservancy’s Boquet Mountain Matrix Area, which is a priority conservation target in The Nature Conservancy’s St. Lawrence-Champlain Valley Ecoregional Plan. This 90-acre property is located just west of the Northeast Wilderness Trust’s Boquet Flats and Northwest Boquet Mountain properties. This tract was an important addition to the Split Rock Wildway because of its largely intact northern hardwood forest, strategic proximity to other protected lands, and development threats.

Northwest Boquet Mountain

In January 2007, the Northeast Wilderness Trust purchased Northwest Boquet Mountain property in Essex, New York. The parcel is centrally located in the Split Rock Wildway; its acquisition was a priority because the land was imminently threatened with subdivision and development. Moreover, this 108-acre property is located on the flanks of Boquet Mountain, an area that conservationists proposed for addition to the publicly owned Adirondack Forest Preserve some two decades ago. Significant forest fragmentation and residential development in the area would likely foreclose future options for a substantial addition to the Forest Preserve in the future. Characterized by transitional hardwood forest, the conserved land offers habitat for a variety of species and is adjacent to Boquet Flats, which the Trust purchased in 2006. Its protection marked the Trust’s fifth conservation success in the Wildway.

Boquet Flats

In May 2006, the Northeast Wilderness Trust purchased Boquet Flats, a critical property located in the Split Rock Wildway in Essex, New York. The Boquet Flats property is 95 acres located on the northeast flanks of South Boquet Mountain. The land is primarily northern hardwood forest and provides habitat for a diversity of wildlife typical in the area, including deer, black bear, fisher, and many songbirds.

Photography by Shelby Perry and Abby Wilson.

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Visitor Guidelines

Split Rock Wildway Preserve is open to the public for quiet exploration and enjoyment. Please respect the plants and animals who live here, show consideration to wildlife, other visitors, and neighboring landowners, know and obey the law, and leave the natural environment as you found it. Enjoy your visit and respect the following guidelines while on the land:

Welcomed Activities

Walking, hiking, snowshoeing & cross-country skiing
Photography, wildlife observation & nature study
Swimming, fishing, paddling & non-motorized boating
Dogs under voice or leash control
Hunting on the Preserve requires a permit, available at newildernesstrust.org/hunting

Prohibited Activities

Motorized vehicles (ATVs, dirt bikes, 4x4s, snowmobiles, or other motorized or mechanized vehicles)
Bicycles
Horses or pack animals
Camping, fires & fireworks
Loud music or radios
Trapping, hounding, or predator hunting
Cutting or damaging plants or trees
New trails or unauthorized trail maintenance
Launching & landing drones

Click here to read NEWT Preserve & Sanctuary Visitation Guidelines

Goff Preserve

Rowe

Northwest Boquet Mountain

Boquet Flats

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