June 7, 2019
By Angela Evancie and Lynne McCrea

Ecologist Bob Zaino measures the diameter of a sugar maple in Gifford Woods State Park in Killington. It's one of Vermont's rare patches of old forest.

Our search (click here) for old growth begins in Killington, Vermont, near the intersection of Route 4 and Route 100. This is the home of Gifford Woods State Park.

It’s a warm, spring afternoon when Brave Little State arrives, and the park hasn’t opened for the season. So we park near the gate and walk into a little patch of woods across the road, sandwiched between Route 100 and Kent Pond. Our guide? Ecologist Bob Zaino, of the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife.

These woods look pretty unremarkable, like what you’d see off any trail (or road) in the Green Mountains. With one exception: Every couple hundred feet, there is a *really* big tree.

“We’ve just walked a short distance into the woods — I mean, we haven’t even left sight of the road. But here we are standing next to one of these giant sugar maple trees,” Zaino says....