Celebrate the holiday weekend at Jamaica State Park!

In addition to great hikes, fishing, and swimming we will have events throughout the day like:

Bike Parade - Come decorate and ride your bike in a parade through the park.

11:30 am decorating 12 pm parade start.

Paper Birch Boat Racing - Design, build, and race a biodegradable boat down the West River.

4 pm at Salmon Hole

Wood Cookie Painting and S'mores - Hangout by the fire, make some s'mores, and paint a wood cookie  to commemorate an awesome day.

7 pm at the Nature center

All programs are included with  camping reservation or $5 park day use fee.

This performance is part of our Words in the Woods live poetry series sponsored by the Vermont Humanities Council.

Toby MacNutt is an author, artist, and teacher based in Addison County. Their work engages themes of embodiment, space and relationship from a queer and disabled perspective. Toby’s debut poetry and short story collection If Not Skin was published by Aqueduct Press in 2018; more recently their work has appeared in or is forthcoming from magazines such as Liminality, Strange Horizons, and Vulture Bones, and as a self-published chapbook, “what cannot be held”. Find out more at www.tobymacnutt.com. 

Walk or bicycle in our annual parade through the Button Bay State Park campground, starting at 3 p.m. on July 4th! We will meet at the Pavilion in the Day Use area and finish at the Contact Station with a bite of ship's biscuit and the sinking of the U.S.S. Congress. Arrive early at 2 p.m. to decorate your bicycle, craft a Continental Navy bicorn hat, and transform our park vehicle into an 18th-century galley ship--or even earlier at 11 a.m. to learn the full dramatic story of the three-day naval chase that lost Lake Champlain and saved the American Revolution.

Learn about the lives of trees within the park while painting your own wood cookie!

Program is included with $5 state park entry fee.

All ages welcome, wheelchair accessible. A rain or shine event.

Join us for an investigation into the health of the watershed through catching and identifying the animals found in the West River!

We will be using dip nets, magnifying glasses, and more! 

Program is included with $5 state park entry fee.

All ages welcome. Water shoes and clothes that can get wet are recommended. This is a rain or shine event.

UPDATE: There is no event at Mt. Ascutney State Park for the total eclipse on April 8th, 2024. Eclipse viewing at summit parking lot, access by hiking up parkway. NO FIRE TOWER ACCESS. All trails are closed. For more information head to: https://vtstateparks.blogspot.com/2024/02/total-eclipse-in-parks.html

Join us at the summit parking area to learn about and witness the partial solar eclipse! Interpretive program begins at 11:30 am. The annular eclipse begins at 12:14 pm and ends at 2:29 pm, with a maximum obscuration of the sun (around 15%) at 1:22 pm. To safely view an annular eclipse, you will need solar eclipse glasses (we will have a limited number of these at the park for visitors to share). Never look directly at the sun without them.

What to bring: solar eclipse glasses (if you have them). Water, and a picnic lunch (please carry out all trash, as there are no receptacles at the summit).

Are the summit trails a good fit for your hiking party? Is Mount Ascutney a volcano? Which plants and animals are you likely to meet on the trails today? Stop by the interpretive table at the summit trailhead to find out more, or ask to have your photo taken from the parking area overlook. Table hours (weather permitting) 11:00am-5:00pm.

Are the summit trails a good fit for your hiking party? Is Mount Ascutney a volcano? Which plants and animals are you likely to meet on the trails today? Stop by the interpretive table at the summit trailhead to find out more, or ask to have your photo taken from the parking area overlook. Table hours (weather permitting) 11:00am-5:00pm.