Equinox Mountain is a mountain in Bennington County, Vermont, United States, in the town of Manchester. The mountain is the highest peak of the

Taconic Range The Taconic Mountains or Taconic Range () are a range of the Appalachian Mountains, running along the eastern border of New York State and adjacent New England from northwest Connecticut to western Massachusetts, north to central western Vermont. ...

, and the highest point of Bennington County. It is one of thirteen peaks in Vermont with a topographic prominence over , ranked third behind

Mansfield Mansfield is a market town and the administrative centre of Mansfield District in Nottinghamshire, England. It is the largest town in the wider Mansfield Urban Area (followed by Sutton-in-Ashfield). It gained the Royal Charter of a market tow ...

and Killington. Equinox is the second highest peak in southern Vermont, after Stratton Mountain.

Geology

The Taconic Range ridgeline continues to the north from Equinox Mountain as Mother Myrick Mountain and south as Red Mountain; it is flanked to the west by Bennetts Ridge and Bear Mountain, also of the Taconic Range, and to the east by the western escarpment and plateau of the Green Mountains, across the Batten Kill valley. The southeast side of Equinox Mountain drains into the Batten Kill, thence into the Hudson River, and into

New York Harbor New York Harbor is at the mouth of the Hudson River where it empties into New York Bay near the East River tidal estuary, and then into the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast of the United States. It is one of the largest natural harbors in t ...

. The northwest side of Equinox drains into the Green River, a tributary of the Batten Kill.

Buildings and other developments

Radio station WEQX's tower is located on the mountain, hence the callsign of the station. There was a former hotel, the Sky Line Inn, which was torn down in 2011 to make way for a new visitor's center, the "Saint Bruno Viewing Center". A small, abandoned Cold War-era

NORAD North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...

radar station can be seen near the summit. The site is now used for two-way communications including the Vermont State Police, and the other radio station to transmit from the mountain, Vermont Public Radio's

WVTQ WVTQ (95.1 FM) is a radio station licensed to Sunderland, Vermont, United States. The station is owned by Vermont Public as part of its Classical network, airing classical music. WVTQ broadcasts from atop Mount Equinox in Manchester. WVTQ has b ...

2022-10-01 13 28 52 will rename and categorize soon 066

The

Charterhouse of the Transfiguration The Charterhouse of the Transfiguration is the only Carthusian monastery in the United States, located on Mt. Equinox, in Sandgate, Vermont. It was founded in 1960 under the initiative of Fr. Thomas Verner Moore and completed in 1970. It superse ...

monastery is situated on the slopes of the mountain. Equinox Mountain can be climbed by several different hiking trails, though most visitors reach the summit via the paved toll road.

Wind farming

Adjacent to the larger Equinox Mountains is Little Equinox, where two wind farms have previously operated. One wind turbine was installed in 1981 and three more in 1982, making Little Equinox Mountain the site of one of the first wind farms in the United States. These turbines, an early-generation design by WTG Systems of Buffalo, New York, were mounted on truss towers and had a nominal peak output of 350 kW. The turbines, however, were plagued with mechanical issues, and by the mid-1980s all four were out of service, standing idle on the mountain from 1985 through 1989.

Green Mountain Power Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by a combin ...

began operating the site in 1988, erecting a wind measurement tower and removing the four old turbines. It installed two U.S. Windpower 100 kW turbines in 1990, which ran for four years making electricity. Green Mountain Power removed its turbines and measurement tower in 1994. The company now owns the Searsburg Wind Farm in

Searsburg, Vermont Searsburg is a town in Bennington County, Vermont, United States. The population was 126 at the 2020 census. Energy development Searsburg is the home of a six-megawatt wind turbine farm owned by Green Mountain Power. The town officers have suppo ...

. Endless Energy Corporation, a wind farm development company based in Maine, has expressed interest in the site for a modern wind farm. They have conducted wind measurements as well as environmental studies of Little Equinox Mountain. To build a wind farm in Vermont, the developer needs to go through the Public Service Board's Section 248 application process.

Summit panorama

References

External links