Plans for making this particular hunting trip had been on the table for three months and although we knew from the website what the basic lodge was going to look like, nothing could have prepared us for what we actually saw when we pulled up. Stepping from the truck, dusty from many miles up long and winding dirt roads, we rounded the front corner of Duplissey Lodge where we were graciously met by Steve and Dan Barbour, our hosts and the owners of Northwoods Outdoor Adventures. My partner, Orrin Parker, and I were on a working hunt for a national outdoor tv show at the time, and were anxious to see what Steve and Dan had to offer us in the way of turkeys.

After shaking hands and accepting a cold drink, we stepped out onto the lodges’ front deck and were taken completely aback by the majestic spring beauty of the Green Mountains of north central Vermont. We had driven up through the foothills but now found ourselves staring at the awesome ridges squarely in the face some 2,200 feet above sea level. I must have murmured something because Steve chuckled and said, “We get that a lot here”.

It was true, no photograph or video could ever do justice to what we found ourselves in the midst of. The view was reminiscent of a big mid-western ranch, as the meadows before us rolled lazily down, some 400+ yards, to a lush, grassy plateau where a broad but quiet beaver pond rested, right at the base of Duplissey Ridge. The mountains picked up from there and rose solidly into a crystal blue sky, the foliage just beginning to burst out in bright green and white-flowering hues. From the front porch we could see the transition zone on the ridge as the red pines, thick as wall to wall carpeting, contrasted sharply at the half-way point, into a wide open expanse of hardwoods. Steve even claimed that those higher elevations housed hundreds of wild apple trees as well.

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