Towns:
Readsboro and Searsburg

Acreage:
5,000

Topography:
A dozen peaks between 2,200-3,000 feet

Water:
Medbury Branch, Wilder Brook, and Lamb Brook

Natural Features:
Critical habitat for black bears and neotropical migratory songbirds

Points of Interest:
Remains of historic stagecoach road built in 1760

The Forest Service logging road (FR266) that climbs north from Heartwellville, near the junction of Routes 8 and 100, gives quick access to the interior of this quiet landscape. From the height-of-land there are glimpses of the terrain south to Massachusetts. Off the road, most views in Lamb Brook are closer and more personal in scale: a narrow trail before the next curve, a small stream as it disappears into an explosion of ferns. Even in the open November woods, filled with patches of bright snow, there is only a slightly longer vista to the next hemlock stand or the next hill.

As with so many recovering New England forests, a careful look at Lamb Brook reveals signs of former human presence. The two-century-old Albany to Boston stage road, now a trail covered with wood "corduroy" and drained by culverts made from hollow logs, winds through overgrown apple orchards, past stone walls, tree-filled cellar holes, and hard-won rock piles where pastures once existed. Ancient maples, marking the edges of former fields, are now surrounded by clusters of birch, red maple, and the beech that now comprise these woods.

Away from the trail, the signs of black bears abound. The smooth, gray bark of the beech show the claw marks of bears climbing for the autumn nut crop. The many bear "nests," tree-top branches gathered together as the bears strip the nuts, attest to the importance of Lamb Brook for black bears.

Deep in the woods is a huge circle of bear-nested beeches. On the ground, in the center of the circle, lie the toppled trunks of trees marked by bears over one hundred years ago. After visiting Lamb Brook, bear biologist Dr. Albert Manville wrote, "in all my work assessing bear feeding habitat for hard mast in New England, upstate New York, Wisconsin, Michigan, and elsewhere in North America, I have never seen such a heavily utilized stand of American beech as this one in the Lamb Brook area."

The soft ground along the stream in Lamb Brook provides witness to the daily parade of deer, moose, fox, coyote, and fisher. In addition, Lamb Brook is breeding habitat for interior forest-dependent neotropical birds like the scarlet tanager, veery, and black-throated blue warbler, who winter in Central and South America but fly north to Vermont in the spring to raise their young. Lamb Brook is a rare large block of unbroken forest cover, which these birds require if they are to reproduce successfully in the region.

Lamb Brook begins as a small trickle in a hollow north of the Old Stage Road, gathers in small pools and navigates among moss-covered rocks on its way down to the Deerfield River. Although this land was used for sheep farming during the nineteenth century, the brook, and later the entire area, were in fact named for the Lamb family, whose descendants still live in Bennington County.

Under a federal court order issued by Chief Judge Murtha in 1995 and affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 1997, Lamb Brook is temporarily off-limits to logging and road building. Wilderness designation would preserve Lamb Brook forever as a haven for wildlife and a quiet, remote place where people can hike, camp, fish, hunt, or simply enjoy a bit of solitude.