Towns:
Salisbury, Leicester, Ripton

Acreage:
7,250

Topography:
2,640 feet
Mount Moosalamoo

Water:
Silver Lake

Natural Features:
Peregrine falcon nesting site

Points of Interest:
Falls of Lana, Silver Lake Recreation Area

Predominantly roadless and 7,250 acres in size, the Moosalamoo NRA has extensive interior forest habitat in an area of Vermont that is largely fragmented. The area is characterized by hilly terrain wooded with spruce, fir, and northern hardwoods. There are several unnamed summits of more than 2,000 feet, with Mount Moosalamoo, the highest peak in the area, at 2,640 feet. Several prominent cliffs, including Rattlesnake Point, are on the western side of the area. Goshen, Sucker, and Voter Streams, and Leicester Hollow Brook afford excellent trout fishing.

The area around Mount Moosalamoo, the core of which is included in the proposed NRA, offers some of the best dispersed recreation opportunities on the Green Mountain National Forest.

The remarkable proliferation of trail networks has led to the formation of the Moosalamoo Association, a coalition of state and federal agencies, utilities, businesses, a youth camp, and conservation and recreation groups. The coalition has produced a detailed map of the trails of the area.

Silver Lake, an undeveloped body of water in the heart of Moosalamo, has 20,000 visitors per year, despite a mile walk in from the nearest parking area and its designation by the Forest Service as semi-primitive. Rattlesnake Point, an ice-scoured rock outcrop with a large talus slope below it rises prominently at the southern end of Moosalamoo ridge. The point offers outstanding views of Silver Lake and the Green Mountain National Forest to the south, Lake Dunmore, the Champlain Valley, and the Adirondacks to the west.

The Moosalamoo NRA includes rare biological treasures mostly in the limestone areas just below Rattlesnake Cliffs, the dry oak woodlands of Burn Mountain Ridge, and the southern end of Chandler Ridge. Seventeen plant species listed as rare or threatened are known to have existed at Rattlesnake Point either recently or historically. Rattlesnake Cliffs are also an historical Peregrine falcon nesting site. In 1998, Peregrine young triumphantly fledged there after an absence of at least 60 years. Moosalamoo provides valuable interior forest habitat as well, including black bear habitat deemed "critical" to the long-term stability of the species. Many interior-dependent neotropical migratory songbirds breed at Moosalamoo, and great blue herons nested recently in a wetland along Goshen Brook. Importantly, Moosalamoo also contains extensive deer yards.