Lake Willoughby Garnet Schist

Muscovite is the most commonly reported find, with beryl, garnet and idocrase also documented. That is a granite pegmatite assemblage rather than the garnet and staurolite schist the site is sometimes described as. Idocrase, also called vesuvianite, is the most distinctive of the group.

Not without establishing land status first. Roadside cuts on Route 5A are highway right of way beneath active rockfall, the slopes above fall within Willoughby State Forest where state land rules apply, and the rest is private. Contact Vermont Forests, Parks and Recreation on 802-793-9727 before collecting.

Because it fills a glacial trough gouged between two mountains, so the cliffs of Mount Pisgah and Mount Hor drop almost directly into the water on either side. That steep-walled profile is unusual in New England and is the reason the lake has drawn visitors since the nineteenth century.

Yes. The Mount Pisgah South Trail is the classic route, climbing to overlooks that look straight down the trough, and Mount Hor on the opposite side offers its own viewpoints. Both are in Willoughby State Forest. Seasonal closures protect nesting peregrine falcons on the Pisgah cliffs.

Route 5A is open year round, but the practical season for hiking and any field geology is late spring through October. The Northeast Kingdom is snowbound for much of the year, and black flies are severe from late May into July. Early October brings the best light and foliage.

Not really, despite the name it is often listed under. The minerals actually reported from the area, muscovite, beryl, garnet and idocrase, are a pegmatite assemblage. Garnet does occur, but it is not the defining mineral and staurolite is not among the well-documented finds here.

Another name for vesuvianite, a calcium aluminium silicate that forms in contact metamorphic and some pegmatite settings, typically in green to brown prismatic crystals. It is uncommon enough that its presence makes a New England locality interesting to mineralogists, and it is one of the more distinctive reported finds at Lake Willoughby.

Not as a general right. Vermont state land carries its own rules on mineral collecting, and collecting is not automatically permitted the way casual collecting is on many federal lands in the west. Contact the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation on 802-793-9727 to establish what is allowed on a specific parcel.

In Westmore, Orleans County, in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, on Route 5A between West Burke and Westmore. It is roughly 40 minutes north of St Johnsbury and 30 minutes southeast of Newport, reached from Interstate 91 via the Barton or Lyndonville exits.

Yes. Peregrines nest on the Mount Pisgah cliffs, and seasonal closures protect them during the nesting period. The closures are legally enforceable and apply to climbing and off-trail access on the cliff faces. Check current closure information before planning any cliff-side activity.

Both questions get the same discouraging answer in discussions. Route 5A through the notch is narrow with almost no shoulder, it carries local and logging traffic, and the cuts sit directly beneath cliffs that shed rock. On top of that, highway right of way is not open collecting ground and the slopes above are state forest. Collectors who know the area consistently steer people toward the hikes and the view rather than toward working a roadcut on that stretch.

This comes up often, and the honest consensus is that Vermont offers far fewer open options than neighbouring New Hampshire and Maine, where designated national forest collecting areas exist. People generally point to established quarry field trips run through mineral clubs, to specific private localities where owners grant access, and to the White Mountain National Forest sites just across the New Hampshire line. The recurring advice for Vermont itself is to work through a club rather than to arrive somewhere with a hammer and hope.