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TJ aka Teej
12-13-2003, 00:11
http://www.outdoors.org/conservation/maine/mainewoods-announce.shtml

The AMC is really spinning this issue, taking every opportunity to scoff at the "wilderness" part of the 100 Mile Wilderness. By the way, the photo on the AMC page is supposed to be Little Lyford Pond and Baker Mountain. It isn't - it's Katahdin from the shore of Compass Pond. Idiots.
I have learned:
The MATC has known about this for months.
This will be a 4 season recreation/education project.
Liquidation logging operations are now underway.
The AMC will also buy, expand, and operate the several Paper Company rental cabins at the North end of the 100 Mile. One is just 1/2 mile from the Hurd Brook Lean-to.
KI road upgrade cost to be shared by AMC and the State, plan is pavement from Greenville to Route 11.
Lyford Pond Camps Area to upgrade to "major" year round accommodations facility, planning says 150-200 beds, including conference center, and "demonstration scale" solar, wind, and hydro power generation. That stuff is just for show, regular utility lines to Lyford Pond will be lain in.
Hemitage area campgrounds to be modernized and expanded to 80 sites, a mix of tenting, RV, cabins, and lean-tos.
AMC visitor centers planned for downtown Greenville, the Hermitage/Gulf Hagas parking area, and at the Katahdin Iron Works gate site.
Maine's new Governor (A paper company whore, in my personal opinion) has been reported as giggling while showing around an AMC map, with new logging areas, new roads and bridges, and new trails for hiking/snowsleding/skiing colored in.

Dharma
12-13-2003, 00:33
I actally give these people money for 'conservation' purposes. Doesn't look like they are in alignment with my ideals anymore.

From the AMC link above, click the map link on the left side to see the purchase.

Bankrobber
12-13-2003, 02:00
This is sad. People often say they enjoy the trail through Maine more than New Hampshire. I attribute that to less people and more of a wilderness tone. I guess AMC is going to change that. It is sad, but fortunately it will be contained to a small section of the southern wilderness.
Where is the Lyford Ponds Campground?
Another blow to the wilderness aspect of the trail. I am glad I got finished my hike while the wilderness was intact.
I can't believe that anyone could mistake that mountain in the background for anything besides Katahdin.
Joe

attroll
12-13-2003, 02:09
TJ

Where did you find all this information at? This is a nightmare. I can not believe the MATC knew about this and did nothing to try and stop it. They did not hesitate to jump on the band wagon oposing wind power energy that was being proposed. But I can not believe they let this happen. I am a member of the MATC and I was not notified of this. This ticks me off.

For a organization that is trying to preserve the AT they sure do some stupid things. That is if this is all true. Maybe they should really change there name to The Appalachian Money Club (AMC). It has been a joke in the past by calling them that. But they are sure living up to that name.

MOWGLI
12-13-2003, 09:39
TJ, do you think this land would be better off in the hands of International Paper? The AMC will undoubtedly do a better job of managing this land than a paper company. As far as the so-called "100 Mile Wilderness" is concerned, I heard feller bunchers in that area every day during my thru-hike, and saw multiple clear cuts from every peak. If the AMC introduces certified sustainable forestry, it will be a big step in the right direction.

TJ aka Teej
12-13-2003, 11:13
Dharma: If you like what the AMC has done in the Whites, you'll love what's planned for the 100 Mile.
Bankrobber: Lyford Pond is just west of WhiteCap. Katahdin just might be the most recognizable mountain in the East, but it was probably the fault of the AMC webmaster to select the wrong photo. Odd no one at the AMC has noticed, though. The photo was taken from in front of one of the Paper Comany rental cabins, also in the plan for developement.
Troll: Let's just say that not every one in Augusta is happy about this. An MATC person just flamed me on the at-l ("deliberate lies.. fabrication.. 99% pure nonsense.. crap"), but admitted the MATC knew about this for years while spinning this as the 'best option'.
Mowgli: I see you're using the AMC's "so-called Wilderness" phrase. Atta boy. "Managing this land.. sustainable foresty.." What's wrong with preserving and protecting it from developement? Why should 'managing' mean profiteering? Why should forestry mean logging? I'm in favor of saving what's left of the Maine woods as opposed using it as a newfound unmilked cash cow. I do not believe that the AMC's proposed economic exploitation of their purchase is the best option.
North Woods National Park: Never a real option, just a boogey man used by State government and the AMC to scare locals. But the idea is looking better than the AMC's plans.
at-l: has an instant archive at http://mailman.hack.net/pipermail/at-l/ if you want, see December 2003 and click on 'date', scroll down and see the 'AMC's rape of the 100 mile' thread to see a pro-rape MATCer's fiery response.

MOWGLI
12-13-2003, 11:55
Mowgli: I see you're using the AMC's "so-called Wilderness" phrase. Atta boy. "Managing this land.. sustainable foresty.." What's wrong with preserving and protecting it from developement? Why should 'managing' mean profiteering? Why should forestry mean logging? I'm in favor of saving what's left of the Maine woods as opposed using it as a newfound unmilked cash cow. I do not believe that the AMC's proposed economic exploitation of their purchase is the best option.


TJ, the phrase about Wilderness is mine, not AMC's. My impressions are based on my experience in that area (ie: hearing logging equipment every day in that 100-mile stretch, and crossing logging road after logging road). I also knew folks who slackpacked the ENTIRE 100-mile "wilderness" in 2000. The "wilderness" that I am familiar with does not permit the vehicular traffic that permitted folks to slack that section of the trail.

What you are talking about is preservation. That is a non-starter in Maine, and you know it. Is that why you were exiled? How exactly is the land being "raped", as you characterized it on the AT-L? That's a pretty strong word.

If the AMC did not purchase this parcel, who else would have? TNC? Another paper company? The Feds? The State of Maine? Someone else? Of all those potential scenarios, how does the AMC alternative stack up? It seems to me that the AMC is making a determined effort to work with locals and provide them with some economic opportunities. That is an essential ingredient of any ecotourism initiative.

What will the impact of this be on the AT? Does the ATC oppose this project? If anything, IMO, there will be less logging as a result of this purchase. The cabins .5 miles from Hurd Brook Lean-To are not in the viewshed, are they? How long have those cabins been there? How will AMC's ownership of these cabins impact the AT and the hiking experience? Are you against new foot trails in the 100-mile area?

Concerning the proposed visitors centers, the AMC does a great job of educating the public on issues like LNT and other conservation issues. I expect those facilities to serve more as education centers than "profiteering" centers. The AMC is a business however, albeit a non-profit one, and as such, needs to be able to pay for its investment. Question, will any of those new facilities be built adjacent to the AT, or within the viewshed?

I'd be grateful for a well thought out response. Thanks.

MOWGLI
12-13-2003, 12:02
http://www.appalachiantrail.org/trailnews/index.html

"AMC Buys 37,000 Acres Around Trail Corridor through Gulf Hagas
The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) has purchased from International Paper Co. (IP) 37,000 acres of timber land that borders both the east and west sides of the protected Appalachian Trail corridor in the Gulf Hagas area of central Maine, between the town of Monson and Baxter State Park. The Trail corridor in that area is managed by the volunteers of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club (MATC) and has some of the most remote and rugged terrain of the 2,174- mile Trail. The AMC property, known as the Katahdin Iron Works land, abuts many prime features of the Trail, including Chairback and Whitecap mountains and Gulf Hagas, the deepest gorge in Maine. The newly acquired lands are in a broad area of timber properties that have been on the market for more than a year and avidly sought by conservationists. The ATC Land Trust and the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust have been involved in many of the related discussions. AMC earlier had purchased the 129-year-old Little Lyford Pond Camps more than a mile northwest of Gulf Hagas. That traditional sporting camp is in the middle of the northern half of the tract purchased December 3 and publicized December 9.

The club for the next year will be developing a specific management plan for the new property that will include resource protection, recreation, and sustainable forestry. Included in this plan will be many opportunities for new hiking trails, some of which may connect to the A.T. AMC has committed to working with ATC and the Maine Appalachian Trail Club in developing those parts of the management plan that would affect Appalachian Trail resources. It specifically noted it hopes to reduce overuse of some parts of the A.T. while addressing the ecological and economic needs of the Maine Woods. Maine Gov. John Baldacci recently announced a "Maine Woods Legacy" policy designed to protect large tracts of forest but allow continued public access and use of forest resources.

News accounts of the AMC transaction referred to the Baxter-Monson area by its anecdotal "100-mile wilderness" moniker, although it is a long-time commercial forestry region — "wilderness" mostly to the extent that the only roads crossing the townless Trail there are unpaved timber haul roads. More information, including a map showing the AMC property, the separate Trail corridor, and other public lands in the area is available on the AMC Web site.
December 11, 2003 "

Peaks
12-13-2003, 12:51
Well, the Great North Woods face their challenges. For decades, they have been owned by large paper companies, and operated (clear cut) accordingly. Now, all that is changing. The paper industry continues to move out of northern New England, and consequently, their vast land holdings are up for sale.

So, what are the choices? Create a new national forest? Nice, but probably a long shot. North woods national park? Mainers will not go for it. I'd say that AMC purchasing land is probably the lesser of evils.

Now, AMC has operated a lot of facilities over the years other than the huts that thru-hikers are familiar with. For several years, they operated Dolly Copp Campground, and a facility in Evans Notch Maine. But, dropped them. Don't know why, and that was decades ago. (like maybe 50 years or so).

So, will the 100 miles become as popular at the White Mountains? If you have ever been to Gulf Hagas on the weekend, you realize that it is a very popular destination. Hundreds of people visit there every Saturday and Sunday during the summer months. Hardly a wilderness with all them there. Frankly, the term "100 mile wilderness" is a misnomer anyway. With all the logging road crossings, and forest operations going on, I certainly did not feel that this stretch of trail was a wilderness at all. I felt much more remote along other sections of the trail.

Back to the question about how popular will it become becasue of AMC? I suspect that it is too far from the population centers to become as popular at the White Mountains. But, it's not the 100 miles that I worry about. Some of my favorite places along the trail in Maine is Rangely to Flagstaff Lake, including the Bigelows. And other than Saddleback and Reddington, that section is not at issue.

If you are concerned about this matter, there are advocacy groups for the Great Northern Forest. I suggest that's the place for people to get involved.

Doctari
12-13-2003, 14:34
The AMC scares me! What next? toll booths when you enter 'Their part of the AT"? I heard a "Joke" that AMC actually means "All My Cash" Perhaps they should change the name to AYC for "All Your Cash".
In all fairness they probably started out with good motives, but it looks like they are only in it to make money now. IMHO that makes them worse than the logging & paper companys, at least they admit to being a for profit interest. I saw the "earnings" of AMCs director, he earns over $100,000.00 For what?

New name for the 100 mile wilderness when (I had "if" here, changed it to when) AMC gets their way: The 100 mile desert. Think about it, where did a "Club" get the money required to by that much land???? I have yet to stay in the whites, but the lodges bring to mind one word: Extortion. Just my humble opinion. Someone prove me wrong please.

Looks like we loose again.

I vote: kick the AMC off the AT.


Doctari.

RagingHampster
12-13-2003, 18:40
I can't believe they haven't corrected that picture.
Talk about lame.

I just eMailed them and told them if they want to atleast look like they're saving the woods, they could atleast get the most recognizable mountain on the AT right.

Come on.

TJ aka Teej
12-14-2003, 00:24
What you are talking about is preservation. That is a non-starter in Maine, and you know it. Is that why you were exiled? How exactly is the land being "raped", as you characterized it on the AT-L? That's a pretty strong word.
>lots of snippage<
If the AMC did not purchase this parcel, who else would have? Jeff: Because preservation isn't supported by the majority it should be abandoned as a goal? I moved from Kennebunk to Mass because Mrs TJ needed to live near her elderly mother, so we'll return someday - hopefully not soon. Read my post on the at-l again if you didn't understand it. It's not about who buys it, Jeff. It's about what they do with it.
Peaks:"Back to the question about how popular will it become because of AMC?" The demand for access is there, ripe for the picking. The money to be made in the north woods is from tourism nowadays. Expect exploitation.
Doctari:Baldacci and the AMC's operatives are much more clever than most of the local yokels and really outclass the MATC. Sheep are being led to the slaughter house, and they're bleating 'thanky very kindly, sir!' all the way...
Raging Hampster: Isn't it astonishing NO ONE at the AMC recognized Katahdin??? That has scary implications..

radar
12-14-2003, 02:36
I spent all of 30 seconds using Google and www.charitynavigator to see how well the AMC stacked up as a charity. Charity Navigator uses a 70 point scale to give an overall rating. The AMC got a 62.06 rating. Here are some other environmental organizations:

The Nature Conservancy 68.23
National Environmental Trust 66.07
Appalachian Mountain Club 62.06
Massachusetts Audubon Society 52.22
Greenpeace 44.86
The Wilderness Society 46.20

Groucho
12-14-2003, 07:43
t'aint Katahdin.

RagingHampster
12-14-2003, 09:54
Certainly seems like it to me from the hundreds of pictures I've seen, then again I've never actually been there, but I think many of the other people on this forum (who have climbed it multiple times) could give a better affirmation.

EDIT:
Before I was about 99% sure, but just to be 100% I rechecked the profile and I can say 100% (in otherwords I'd put good money down on it) that the AMC has made a truely moronic error.

That being said, the day I get around to hiking the AT, and if I reach the 100mile wilderness, I'll be stealth camping. I'd much rather see a pristine wilderness with an entrance fee to maintain and preserve that wilderness than a disney-esque wonderland of gazeebos and people dressed as moose.

Peaks
12-14-2003, 10:27
Certainly this purchase makes AMC a major land owner in Maine. And there are valid concerns about how it will be managed.

For those who have strong feelings on this, I would urge you all to join AMC and become involved with the committee that will oversee the area. Become part of the solution.

TJ aka Teej
12-14-2003, 10:43
t'aint Katahdin.Hi Groucho,
I remember seeing Baker above the pines across Little Lyford Pond, but if I took a photo I can't find it. Do you have a picture? The AMC's photo is pretty fuzzy, but it sure looks like Katahdin to me from a pond on the Golden Road east of Abol Bridge, the Hunt Spur stepping up on the left, and the Abol Slide highlighted by snow in the chute. I'll try to post a similar picture.

TJ aka Teej
12-14-2003, 10:58
For those who have strong feelings on this, I would urge you all to join AMC and become involved with the committee that will oversee the area. Become part of the solution.
Peaks: what are the chances that a new member, expressing serious concern about the AMC's plans, could get on such a commitee?

Peaks
12-14-2003, 11:13
Peaks: what are the chances that a new member, expressing serious concern about the AMC's plans, could get on such a commitee?

Valid question. However, I think that like most organizations, they are always looking for people who are doers and want to get involved.

We have been AMC members for decades, but never contributed much. My only major involvement with AMC was the organizing committee for ATC 2003. I dropped a dime and offered to help. I became very involved. So, I think it's quite possible for a new member to get on the committee.

If yourself, or anyone else, want to put in some serious effort, I think I know the person to contact.

Groucho
12-14-2003, 13:35
Hi Groucho,
I remember seeing Baker above the pines across Little Lyford Pond, but if I took a photo I can't find it. Do you have a picture? The AMC's photo is pretty fuzzy, but it sure looks like Katahdin to me from a pond on the Golden Road east of Abol Bridge, the Hunt Spur stepping up on the left, and the Abol Slide highlighted by snow in the chute. I'll try to post a similar picture.

Hello TJ,

I read the first few posts and looked at the picture. Looked pretty much like K from Abol to me too, but I kept coming back to look. Katahdin looms massive from Abol. This couldn't be Katahdin, I say to myself, even with lens trickery.
Seems to be forested on the summit and the shoulders are wrong and the central massif? was not as prominent. Went to Topozone for Baker and Little Lyford Pond. Looked like it could actually as represented in photo, so I posted.

Read your post and thought I could be wrong. Looked at a couple of pictures of K. and revisited the URL for AMC. Click on Little Lyford Pond Camps on the left and then click on Photos of Little Lyford Pond Camp, also on the left. Scroll down the page to the end and see a couple of photos of Baker. Doubt they posted several pictures of the wrong mountain. Does look a lot like K in the fuzzy snow picture and does so even in the summer pics. I'd bet a lot of dough on this one.

TJ aka Teej
12-14-2003, 14:04
Does look a lot like K in the fuzzy snow picture and does so even in the summer pics. I'd bet a lot of dough on this one.You're right, Groucho! I'll blame my mistake on seeing red while viewing thier fuzzy photo - but I was mistaken, that's for sure. Thanks!

Peaks: Right now, joining the AMC isn't on my list.

RagingHampster
12-14-2003, 14:26
I stand corrected :o ...

Good eye! :datz

greyowl
12-15-2003, 11:35
Two thoughts, first is that some big time developer did not buy the land, nor another logging company! While there are some who question AMC's ulterior motives I know that the character will remain the same, i.e no disney world or some fancy resort built for the elete rich. I feel sory for those of you who think that the AT is a wilderness area. It is not!!! I can show you a lot of real wilderness areas, much of it not too far north of here.

Secondly the AMC called begging for money. Well I am a member of the AMC and I resent that they ask for more money. The guy was talking about the need to maintain the huts and the trail. Well there is 14 miles of trail in PA that is maintained by the AMC and it seems to be below the radar screen at headquarters. And how about Mohican? It needs a lot of work, but for some reason there does not seem to be enough money for that either.

Grey Owl

icemanat95
12-15-2003, 15:12
A LOT of handwaving again.

Folks the affected area of the AT is maybe 15 miles TOPS, and the actual impact on the AT will be even less since the AT corridor is mostly it's own thing there and the ATC is being included in the process. The VAST majority of the AMC purchase is located away from the AT, and as you can see, even hundreds of thousands of acres, get swallowed up pretty fast when they are spread out in a block: an acre isn't that big.

As for preservation, folks you haven't got the FAINTEST idea what that land used to look like. 100-150 years ago it HAD been clear-cut. These little postage stamp clearings they do today are nothing compared to the massive cuts they used to do. Now they may clear cut 1/4-1 square mile of trees in clusters. 100-150 years ago, they would leave nothing but slash and stumps for 20 square miles or more. Maine was essentially timbered out 100 years ago. Baxter State park came into being to protect it from overcutting. At the time it was an island in a sea of stumps. Now, the vast majority of Maine is forested, much of it thickly forested after 60-100 years of recovery. There are entire towns buried under the forest duff out there, towns that once thrived, but died when the timber industry failed. A lot of lives were affected and a lot of tragedies played out.

In the towns surrounding the AT corridor in Maine, timber IS the economy. Aside from the odd boutique town like Rangley, if you aren't in the timber business, chances are you support it. There is some tourism based industry near ski areas and good fishing lakes, but that's all seasonal business. Logging is year round. When you shut down logging in the Northern Forest you do a few things. You kill towns dead as a doornail. Entire communities simply fail, all at once. Some folks will try to hang on until the last, living off welfare, social security and whatever cottage industry they can work up, but most will leave. The young people go first, then desperate middle agers who need to pay for kids college or their parents retirements or simply cannot afford to retire themselves. Eventually the towns are left with just old folks who can't or won't move. Watching a town die is a depressing thing.

Some towns won't die, as folks sell out, some folks will move in, seasonal owners, mostly wealthy with "away" attitudes and a habit toward profligate waste. They will level the quaint cottages and efficient little new england homes and put up huge western style log cabins and Lindal cedar homes, making certain to clear out views from their great rooms. They build islands of suburbia in the middle of the woods for their occasional use, demanding suburban grade services for their part time residency. To fund them, local communities, or the remnants of them, are forced to drive up their property taxes. While this isn't a huge stretch for most of the newcomers, it is often disasterous for the old time locals. Whose year-round income averages out pretty low since most of the services created to support the boutique crowd are season, limited to the short Summer and maybe the Winter. There is nothing in the mud/black fly season and little in the late fall prior to snowfall. In snow-poor winters, they lose that season and in rainy summers, that one as well. The net result is an even deepening of the haves and have nots in these communities. Actually what you get is the total dissolution of the Community.

The other thing you get when you destroy the timber industry in these areas is a messed up forest. Species diversity will fall off as the clearings close in and diseases that used to be kept in check by forestry just run rampant. At least until you get a dry summer and a forest fire creates a clearing. And that only happens if the boutique crowd doesn't scream so loud about their multi-million dollar homes to force someone to come in and put out the fire. Then you have a continuation of the same unhealthy situations.

Here's something else that a lot of armchair environmentalists don't seem to realize. Open space is part of the ecosystem as well. It provides grazing habitat for deer, who prefer "edge territory" where the covering forest is close enough to bolt into, but cleared areas yield abundant fresh growth for browse. It also provides hunting grounds for coyotes and raptors, bears seek it out for berries and other new growth. So do songbirds, rabbits, hares, fieldmice, and just about every other sort of animal. Turkeys browse in clearings and fields most of the year. Other animals use them as comfortable travel-ways. Cougars are returning to New England following power-transmission and gas-line rights of way down from Canada. Coyotes use them to migrate around as well. If we ever see caribou in New England again, they will probably arrive by migrating down the utility clearings.

Before, clearings were provided by natural processes like forest fires and disease, these, of course, killed off a lot more trees and a lot less selectively than logging. Forest fires and diseases are not total disasters of course. Forests do come back from them, it takes a while, but they adapt and evolve and recover over time. Takes a hundred years or so, but it happens. Of course in the mean time, all the nu=ouveau enviromentalistas recoil at the ugliness of it and try to figure out how they can legislate such things away. Most of them think of the environment in only aesthetic terms after all, and only within the context of their own desires.

Actually I am mostly infavor of the AMC's purchase. It will put most of this chunk of forest into conservation, with limited, sustainable forestry activities and recreational and educational activities focused on more responsible use and stewardship of the backcountry. Additionally, the AMC is doing this with a practical concern for the local communities. It is not seeking to dismantle the entire job-base of the region while it will provide additional jobs at the facilities created. Undoubtable the AMC will also create additional educational opportunities in the region as well, making its facilities available to school groups and providing instruction on LNT and a variety of other conservation and nature topics to schoolchildren.

This is a positive way to function in a region rather than the more divisive method seemingly favored by many so-called environmentalists, seizing private property under eminent domain, taking it out of economic production and putting it under federal ownership while simultaneously increasing the tax load to pay for acquisition, maintenance and the various federal bureaucrats not truly needed, but mandated by the enabling legislation. This method creates havoc and dissention locally as (detailed above) industries collapse and communities die. A LOT of hard feelings are created by the heavy handed tactics employed.

The AMC method, and for that matter, the Trustees for Reservations method and the Nature Conservancy method, tends to keep land in private ownership. Acquisition is generally funded privately and the transfer of ownership is peaceful, orderly and quick, since it is voluntary and equitable.

As far as charges of profiteering are concerned, they are strictly sour grapes in this case. The AMC, being a NON-PROFIT organization, must, by charter and law, funnel any revenues it generates over and above the costs of operations, back into it's core programs. A non-profit organization that generates profits loses that status and all its protections. Criminal proceedings against the principals involved in the violation of its status are likely and substantial back-taxes and fines would be levied against the organization. As someone else has demonstrated, among environmental non-profits, the AMC operates very efficiently and effectively. So what if the director makes 100K a year. That's less than the average pharmaceutical sales rep does after you count in commissions and bonuses. A Pharmaceutical sales manager with a similar region of responsibility would earn several times that amount. Look up the annual reports of most charities and you'll probably find a director with a similar OR HIGHER salary. The bottom line is that a non-profit corporation is still a corporation, and running such an organization takes as much skill and training as it does to run a for-profit corporation. In fact, because of the non-profit nature of the business, you probably need someone who is more talented than a similar position in a for profit company demands since you have to do an awful lot with a lot less. You cannot attract that kind of talent and capability with 50k a year. The sort of person you would attract with 50k a year wouldn't be up to the task.

And what a lot of AT hikers view as "profiteering" in the whites is simply the cost of doing the job up there. Mostly the folks who use the Huts are folks who want to use them and are willing to pay the fees Thru-hikers are such a small minority in the Whites, our gripes about the Huts amount to little more than one of the cairns that mark out trails above treeline. The AMC receives FAR more positive feedback on the Huts. The Huts also do a heck of a lot more than simply fund the Huts. They also fund research efforts into the effects of smog, environmental warming, testing and developing better ways of dealing with the human waste generated by the millions of hikers that hit the thousands of miles of trails in the Whites, trail maintenance and a pile of other activities. But thru-hikers tend to get so wrapped up and focussed on our private journeys that we completely miss the bigger picture. We get to seeing EVERYTHING that we see or that happens to us along the trail in terms of how it affects us. While that is natural, its also a false perspective.

The one legitimate gripe thru-hikers have in the Whites is the absence of inexpensive and trail accessible shelter options from around Franconia Notch, north to around Pinkham or Carter notches.

As far as the potential impacts of this acquisition on the local ecology, I think they will be largely aesthetic. Thru-hikers will get upset at a somewhat increased number of hikers on what they have viewed here-to-fore as "their" trail, made exclusive by it's remoteness and the level of commitment needed to hike the entire length of it. Of course this has evaporated in recent years. In 1995, a group of us paid Keith Shaw to ferry in 5 more days worth of food and fuel to us at the Jo Mary Road crossing. That was unusual in 1995. Now folks are slack packing through the region, resupplying half way through. There are weekly feasts at The Antlers campsite, etc. The wilderness has long been gone from the 100 mile wilderness, actually, it's been gone for over 150 years, no AT hiker has ever experienced true wilderness on this or any other stretch of the AT. What AT hikers think they are losing with this acquisition is a feeling of exclusivity that was never deserved or warranted. And I am speaking as a former thru-hiker here.

Thru-hiker elitism is our own worst enemy.

Blue Jay
12-15-2003, 16:03
Actually I am mostly infavor of the AMC's purchase. It will put most of this chunk of forest into conservation, with limited, sustainable forestry activities and recreational and educational activities focused on more responsible use and stewardship of the backcountry. Yes, conservation is such a horrible thing. We must sell everything as fast as possible.




As far as charges of profiteering are concerned, they are strictly sour grapes in this case. The AMC, being a NON-PROFIT organization, must, by charter and law, funnel any revenues it generates over and above the costs of operations, back into it's core programs. A non-profit organization that generates profits loses that status and all its protections. Criminal proceedings against the principals involved in the violation of its status are likely and substantial back-taxes and fines would be levied against the organization. As someone else has demonstrated, among environmental non-profits, the AMC operates very efficiently and effectively. So what if the director makes 100K a year.All NON-PROFIT means is a corporation must be creative in funneling money into the right pockets in the right amounts. The AMC is by no means the only corporation that uses this type of legalized public fraud.




You cannot attract that kind of talent and capability with 50k a year. The sort of person you would attract with 50k a year wouldn't be up to the task.You are very correct here. It takes a very high level of greed to run an organization like the AMC.


As far as the potential impacts of this acquisition on the local ecology, I think they will be largely aesthetic.Again correct. Aesthetics are what created the AT. People wanted something other than stripmalls and factories. Aestetics must be crushed for profit. I love your prefixes for environmentalists, nu=ouveau, so called, and my favorite armchair. Clearly you, George W and the AMC have nothing but contempt for the environment.


Thru-hiker elitism is our own worst enemy.I believe it is thuhiker political apathy that is our worst enemy. Corporations must be destroyed as we are already their slaves.

MOWGLI
12-15-2003, 16:41
Blue Jay, if you want to destroy all Corporations, you're gonna have to write up a business plan.

Iceman, your message was dead-on. There are two kinds of non-profits. Those that behave like a business, and those that went out of business, or are about to do so.

Lone Wolf
12-15-2003, 17:00
Not having inexpensive shelter options in the Whites is NOT a legitimate gripe for thru-hikers. They are no different than section hikers or weekend hikers. ALL hikers should pay the same. The AT was never intended to be thru-hiked. If you choose to then deal with the fees or stealth.

rickb
12-15-2003, 17:25
Iceman is right about the AMC. But...

A non-profit which bull-dozes an inexpensive hostel to build an education center offering $250 snowshoe classes and private rooms that will cost a couple $208 a night (or a pair of bunks for just $132 per night) is going to catch some grief, however. Its got to. Even if those rates do include breakfast and dinner and a high-speed internet connection. Especially when such a center doesn't include a hiker's room like Pinkham Notch.

And especialy from those who contribute to it.

A non-profit which charges a family of 4 $32 a night to pitch a couple tents on a single platform (at a significant financial loss, we are assured) if they are lucky enough to get one, is bound to be questioned in some circles. Especially when their crowning glorry is a $9 million dollar center which is being marketed to business and other non-traditional users.

And especially by those who have high expectations of the AMC.

A non-profit that has told us for years that they are struggling to stay in the black, but borrows $14 million dollars to buy the only poperty in thier extensive portfolio without a proportionate recreation and hospitality infrustucture is going to beg some questions, as to what thier intentions are. No one spends 14 million dollars without a vision for the future. And who expected the reality which is the Highland Center when the Vision 2010 campaign was announced?

Bottom line, now more than ever I understand people's mixed feelings abou the AMC.

Rick B

Alligator
12-15-2003, 17:40
...
The other thing you get when you destroy the timber industry in these areas is a messed up forest. Species diversity will fall off as the clearings close in and diseases that used to be kept in check by forestry just run rampant. At least until you get a dry summer and a forest fire creates a clearing. And that only happens if the boutique crowd doesn't scream so loud about their multi-million dollar homes to force someone to come in and put out the fire. Then you have a continuation of the same unhealthy situations..

You have western forest disturbance patterns confused with those in Maine. Fire is not a major disturbance regime in Maine. Large-scale forest fires are a very uncommon occurence in Maine. Nothing at all like the Western US. A major disturbance agent is spruce budworm, at least in the region of Maine under discussion. It is cyclical in nature and struck last sometime around the 1970's (maybe early '80s) and also in the 1910's.

Foresters do make attempts to prevent disease outbreaks, but often these are not successful. In Maine, one idea to prevent spruce budworm is to limit the representation of balsam fir. It is a short-lived species and the actual host for spruce budworm. So, foresters may thin out the balsam fir earlier in the stand rotation.





...
Before, clearings were provided by natural processes like forest fires and disease, these, of course, killed off a lot more trees and a lot less selectively than logging. Forest fires and diseases are not total disasters of course. Forests do come back from them, it takes a while, but they adapt and evolve and recover over time. Takes a hundred years or so, but it happens. Of course in the mean time, all the nu=ouveau enviromentalistas recoil at the ugliness of it and try to figure out how they can legislate such things away. Most of them think of the environment in only aesthetic terms after all, and only within the context of their own desires. ..

No, humans basically clear-cut the whole state. There is a very small percentage of old-growth forest in Maine, I think it is on the order of about 5000 acres due to human activities. The rest was cut over by people. Spruce-fir forests in Maine are typically managed by even-aged methods. That means, close to the end of the rotation, all the trees are cut. Prior to European arrival, there was a greater expanse of old-growth. It does not take a hundred years for a forest to regenerate in Maine. In fact, Maine has very good natural regeneration, as opposed to the need to plant forests. (But the length of time to maturity is slow.) Unless a fire is catastrophic, which basically does not happen in Maine, the forest will quickly establish new growth and the next generation begins. Same thing after insect outbreaks.

I just wanted to clarify the forest ecology issues for any of the "armchair environmentalists" you mentioned.

TJ aka Teej
12-15-2003, 17:52
A LOT of handwaving again.
Several long paragraphs full.
Iceman? The Timber industry is already dying. IP is selling/has sold because they have used up the land they have and there's no profit in sustainable forestry. One of the only ways to make any money now is to cut as much as possible and sell the land, a practice known as liquidation logging. And this last gasp is keeping the mills at what, 20% capacity? The debate isn't about logging, never was, it's about what's to be done with the land now that they're through with it.
I'm glad to see you're one of the many people who know New England's forests were once cut down. I'm sure there must be a few readers who don't know that old growth is a rare thing in the east, but perhaps they're now informed via your lecture. Thanks.
Ah, here at the very end, something more on topic:
"The wilderness has long been gone from the 100 mile wilderness, actually, it's been gone for over 150 years, no AT hiker has ever experienced true wilderness on this or any other stretch of the AT. What AT hikers think they are losing with this acquisition is a feeling of exclusivity that was never deserved or warranted. And I am speaking as a former thru-hiker here."
So, as a former thru-hiker, you don't care that the AMC's plan is to make our Trail even *less* like wilderness by establishing a 'base of operations' and developing a large four season outdoor recreation resort in the heart of the 100 Mile? I'm sorry to hear that attitude from a former thru-hiker.

TJ aka Teej
12-15-2003, 17:59
Two thoughts, first is that some big time developer did not buy the land, nor another logging company!
Hi GreyOwl,
The AMC *is* a big time developer here. No other logging company was in the picture, the land in question is pretty used up.

TJ aka Teej
12-15-2003, 18:18
It does not take a hundred years for a forest to regenerate in Maine. In fact, Maine has very good natural regeneration, as opposed to the need to plant forests. (But the length of time to maturity is slow.) Unless a fire is catastrophic, which basically does not happen in Maine, the forest will quickly establish new growth and the next generation begins. Same thing after insect outbreaks.

I just wanted to clarify the forest ecology issues for any of the "armchair environmentalists" you mentioned.
AT hikers in the 100 Mile can see regenerated forest almost everywhere they see trees. The woods from north to Katahdin Iron Works were denuded for charcoal, the woods around Rainbow Lake burned completely twice this century, in fact if you're among 80 year old trees you're a pretty lucky hiker. There's an old growth stand on Nesuntabunt, and some pretty old trees at the Hermitage, but that's about it in the 100 Mile. Maine's last "big" fire was in 1947, but was mainly coastal from Wells to Bar Harbor. Inland, there wasn't enough continous forest to let it spread there as it did among the towns.

sloetoe
12-15-2003, 18:25
Not having inexpensive shelter options in the Whites is NOT a legitimate gripe for thru-hikers. They are no different than section hikers or weekend hikers. ALL hikers should pay the same. The AT was never intended to be thru-hiked. If you choose to then deal with the fees or stealth.

### This would be a fair enough reply were the Whites the private property of the AMC, but as the Whites are part of a national forest, and belong to you, me, and my kids (and allllll their friends), not having inexpensive shelter options is an entirely legitimate gripe.

Sloetoe
(who, with his kids, went Killington->Pinkham in '02,
without spending a dime.)

MOWGLI
12-15-2003, 19:32
### This would be a fair enough reply were the Whites the private property of the AMC, but as the Whites are part of a national forest, and belong to you, me, and my kids (and allllll their friends), not having inexpensive shelter options is an entirely legitimate gripe.

Sloetoe
(who, with his kids, went Killington->Pinkham in '02,
without spending a dime.)

Sloetoe, I understand your argument BUT (you knew that was coming), that same argument could apply to any number of ski areas and other recreational facilities found in National Forests throughout the US. Does anyone have the right to ski cheaply in Vail, CO? What about the lift ticket fees at Wildcat in the White Mountains? That is White Mountain NF land.

Jack Tarlin
12-15-2003, 20:09
To Iceman---

First of all, it's gratifying to see someone sending along longer posts than mine.

A few comments:

True, the 100-Mile "Wilderness" was never really that, there were always road crossings, re-supply possibilities, access points, etc. However, even tho the area was already getting "developed" in '95, this development was always limited: There is still only one real place to re-supply in the area, that being White House Landing, and a lot of folks skip it precisely because they have no wish to interrupt the last week of their hikes with a stop of this sort. Likewise, while Keith Shaw has offerred a re-supply option half-way thru at Jo-Mary road, this was always something that relatively few folks took advantage off. As far as other signs of encroaching civilization and outside influence, the hiker feed you mentioned at Antler's campsite, a spectacularly beautiful spot, is an annual event, not a weekly one. This is still a VERY undisturbed area.

Fact is, this is still the most isolated, "wildest" long stretch of the A.T. that remains, and most folks would like very much to keep it that way. While I am of course happier that a group such as the AMC now owns a large chunk of land in the area as opposed to private developers who'd wish to do God-knows-what with it, I still think it's very fair and legitimate to be concerned with what sort of development the AMC has planned for this area, especialy in terms of building huts, lodges, high-end facilities aimed at their tonier members, etc. In my opinion, the club has really dropped the ball in the High Country of the White Mountains by concentrating such a disproportionate ammount of their time and energy in order to please and placate a tiny fraction of people, and this has absolutely been done at the expense of providing "equal time" and resources to the vast majority of folks who neither want nor can afford their exclusionary lodging offerings. The perfect example of this is the recent construction of the new "Highland Center" in Crawford Notch, which exists solely to squeeze money from AMC members who wish to enjoy the Whites without having to mingle with their lesser brethren. (The Center has also outraged locals who were utterly mis-led in such things as the tax-exempt status of the new facility; the surprise inclusion of a liquor license; it being less an "educational" center than a high-end resort, etc.) The Highland Center is essentially a hotel that only a tiny fraction of White Mountain visitors either want to take advantage of, or more to the point, can afford to take advantage of. The AMC has always, since their inception, viewed the Whites as the personal playground of their well-heeled members in suburban Boston and New York, and the building of a multi-million dollar facility such as the Highland Center, which among other things, replaced a long-existing and much-beloved hiker facility in Crawford Notch, absolutely exemplifies the Club's priorities. This sort of elitist, exclusionary "progress" is exactly what the backcountry of Maine does not need: The AMC's mission statement says that it primarily exists to provide wise and appropriate stewardship of New England's wilder regions, and to preserve and protect them. In the Whites, this has all too often meant building and promoting high-end facilities that encourage people to visit incredibly fragile, and already overused areas, without the means, education, training, or equipment to treat these areas with the respect they deserve. For example, the high country of the Whites, were it a National Park, would be the most visited Park in the nation, yet the AMC spends thousands of dollars annually on glossy brochures, magazine adds, and website promotions whose sole purpose is to encourage yet more visitors to an area that is already being loved to death. I'd really hate to see this sort of thing happen in Maine.....the LAST thing this relatively unspoiled area needs is a system of faux-European lodges and huts whose sole purpose is to increase revenue for the Club, while providing more vacation options for its wealthier members, who presumably already have options enough.

In short, Iceman, you've raised some valid points, but a lot of us are very concerned about what the Club has planned for this area. A lot of New Hampshire residents, like myself, are utterly disgusted with what the Club did with the Highland Center. Many of us are no longer members of the AMC nor wish to support the Club financially. It is entirely fitting and proper that we be concerned about what they have planned for Maine, especially as regards land near or adjacent to the A.T., and if their plans include a system of high-end Huts and Chalets that serve only to fill their coffers and coddle their members, who have already been pampered enough, I assure you there will be a great deal of resistance to this.

Peaks
12-16-2003, 10:02
To anyone who complains about the fees for tent sites in the White Mountains (and the Green Mountains), let me say that you should have seen these sites before there were caretakers. People are pigs, and the popular sites were trashed. I'll gladly pay the $8 for a clean site that isn't trashed, and doesn't have the party crowd.

Or, when I don't feel like paying the fee, I'll find somewhere else to tent. Lots of good places to camp where you don't need to pay the fee.

Peaks
12-16-2003, 10:13
Jack, and others.

First, for those who don't remember, there was a 300 plus room grand hotel on that site from about 1860 to 1960. So, the hostel was opened only after the hotel burned in 1977.

Second, I agree that there is a lot of concern about how the new facility will be run. And I think there are some valid concerns. To anyone who is concerned about what's going on, then I suggest that you get involved with AMC. Be part of the solution.

rickb
12-16-2003, 11:08
To anyone who complains about the fees for tent sites in the White Mountains (and the Green Mountains), let me say that you should have seen these sites before there were caretakers. People are pigs, and the popular sites were trashed. I'll gladly pay the $8 for a clean site that isn't trashed, and doesn't have the party crowd.______________________

I am one who complains, so here goes.

While I do think that the caretaker system has its place, I think the trashing problem was not at all because people were pigs, but rather because some of these sites physically did not have enough space to accomodate late comers on platforms. What happened? People would pitch thier tents directly on the ground and disturb vegitation. The problem wan't that they were pigs.

Other sites, away from the glorious AT, also have shelters in the Whites. Some of these, like Gordon Pond, get nearly as much use as those on the Trail. They are not managed by a full-time care taker, however. They are not trashed. The AT shelters are not trashed in the shoulder seasons when the caretakers go home, either. No, its not that people are pigs in the Whites.

Other sites, like those north of Gorham historically were taken care of by a roving caretaker who took care of the privy and collected funds. These too were not trashed.

The Maine Appalachian Trail Club, with limited funds, has decided that part of its mission, part of the reason for being, part of why if gets members, is to protect its heavily used campsites. They do so as part of thier mission, and have elected not to charge. Whether that is a good choice or a bad one, I think it does not only reflect their priorities, but helps shape them. Whith the AMC managers looking at how the Huts through off a net positive contribution of $1 million dollars and the sites show a net loss of $80K, it does have an impact on the club's choices.

Ok, Ok, all that not withstanding I accept that the very heavy usage of the AT means that care takers have thier place. Privies need to be maintained, and peple need to be turned away.

But here is what happens:

1. The AMC (unlike the Forest Service at its campgrounds) charges on a per person basis. This is not a burdon to an individual thru-hiker (who, presumably could find a spot in the woods anyway) but most certainly is to a young family who would be charged $32 per night. And remember, its this family user who could most benefit from the perceived comfort and safety of a designated site. This is my biggest complaint, BTW. The AMC should charge by site, not by person.

2. The AMC preaches its educational role from every mountain top. Has ANYONE ever seen a caretaker help further this mission? Perhaps I just scare them away by my surely attitude expressed here, but frankly I haven't seen it.. I have seen it at the MATC sites, however. I am thinking of one time enjoying a start gazing talk with a caretaker, and another MATC caretaker waxing poetic about rare thrushes to a group of scouts in the area. Anyone have a similar experience at an AMC site? I think the missed opportunity stems directly from the top. The shelters and sites are looked at as a burdon by the AMC. A charitable role they have been forced to accept, rather than a wonderfull thing in and of itself, and a perfect opportunity to further thier educational goals.

3. There will be times when a caretaker will be faced with the challenge of turning people away, because a site is full. Has anyone seen this done? Is it with a map in hand and a consultive, helpfull approach? Or is it with a slam of a door? Be honest. Perhaps I am just a grump. Or perhaps its that the AMC simply looks at shelter and designated site users as pigs, who need to be managed. With such a message coming down from the top, even the most idealistic caretaker/privy turner can't help but adopt much of the attitude.

That said, a thru hiker, especially one does not contribute to the AMC, has little reason to complain about the site fees, IMO. At least in regard to his or own person situation.

Rick B

icemanat95
12-16-2003, 12:17
Jack,

What I am mainly fighting here is the chicken-little syndrome that pops up any time ANYTHING happens along the AT corridor and especially when it concerns the AMC. The level of intense paranoia (especially from folks like Blue Jay) is frustrating because it is utterly unproductive. People make dire predictions of disaster before they have anything more than a tiny little media report. No effort is made to find new data, and any data that goes against their preconceived notions and emotional reactions is instantly ignored or classified as lies and damned lies. Others say the AMC should be kicked out of the Whites forgetting of course that the AMC was the organization that ensured that there would BE a White Mountain National Forest, and was one of the prime movers of the AT project.

Should AT hikers and backcountry advocates be concerned? hell yes, and I said so several times in my various posts on the subject in two seperate threads. But concern and just plain panic without engagement and information is not just a waste of effort, but counterproductive. It creates a strong impression of hysteria and irrational extremism.

Folks here have formed hard opinions on the matter before any real proposal has been made. Sure there are preliminary plans, but it will be a year before anything firm is offered up.

In that year there is time for real engagement in the process, building grass roots support amng the AMC membership for a low impact plan, and if necessary, to build opposition to plans that are unreasonable.

I have my own questions and concerns. I would hate to see another Highland Center, though I don't think that's a danger since I don't think the region can attract that level of visitorship.

As alligator points out, the Northern Forest is in better shape than it has been in for a century or more. Despite continued logging practices, the forest are regenerating and have regenerated to the point that most people cannot tell that it is third and fourth growth.

Fire has always been a factor in the Northern Forest, certainly not on the massive scale of the west, but there are many northern mountains that are bald not because of weather conditions, but because fires stripped them of vegetation and erosion then prevented regrowth. One of the reasons we haven't seen serious forest fires in New England is precisely BECAUSE the forest has been cut over at least once pretty much everywhere. Our damper weather also plays a strong role in limiting the spread of what fires we do have. Forestry practices limit the amount of standing dry fuel there is in a forest and reduces the threat of serious fires. Whether this is a good thing or not ecologically I cannot say. But in terms of human impacts, forest fires burning down towns is a bad thing.

The fact of the matter is however, that we have little concrete data about what the effects of forest fires would be on northern forests, because human intervention has prevented them for longer than we have even had a concept of environmentalism and forestry science. The fact of the matter is that by the time of the Civil War, The Eastern US was essentially one big pasture from the Canadian border down to the Gulf of Mexico. If it wasn't being cut for trees it was being planted for crops. By the time of the AT project the peak of the timber industry had passed and the forests were already recovering. Today, the forests of the eastern US are in the best shape they have been in since the American Revolution. That improvement will continue as timber companies continue to divest their interests in the region in favor of operations in Canada and the Southern US. The AMC project, whether they actually do engage in any sustainable logging activities or not, will have almost no effect on this, either positive or negative, there simply isn't enough land involved.

Again, I AM NOT saying that there is no cause for concern. I am saying that there is no need for the outright panic we have seen in these two threads. We simply do not have enough information to form any intelligent opinion on the matter at this time. I personally feel that it won't be anything as bad as some here are predicting. I cannot see the region attracting the visitor levels that the White Mountains attract, it's just not grand enough in scale. It would make a good location for teaching folks basic backcountry skills, to run tracking courses, to run winter snowshoeing and cross country skiing programs, winter camping programs in a lower risk environment, etc.

I'll save my alarm for when I see the scale of the plans. Until then, I will write a letter or two to the AMC, to the ATC and to the Park Service expressing my concerns that the AMC project not be allowed to seriously impact the AT or to sit so heavily on the land as the Highland Center does.

Blue Jay
12-16-2003, 12:27
Panic???, IcePollyanna get real. The AMC is merely a pimple on the White Mountains (and now Wilderness) Butt. Do they need to be stopped, yes.

Alligator
12-16-2003, 16:50
"Ecology: Vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 139–148.

The Presettlement Forest and Natural Disturbance Cycle of Northeastern Maine
Craig G. Lorimer

Abstract. Land survey records of 1793—1827 containing forest data for 1.65 x 106 ha of northern Maine were analyzed for species composition, successional status, and frequency of large—scale disturbance. Quantitative data consists of 1,448 sample trees spaced 1.6 km apart along a 9.7— x 9.7—km grid. Species which each comprised > 10% of the total were Picea spp., Fagus grandifolia, Abies balsamea, Thuja occidentalis, and Betula lutea. These forests appeared to be largely in a climax state as indicated by the dominance of shade—tolerance species and the small percentage (8%) of intolerant or early successional species. However, 9.3% of the tract was burned land and birch—aspen forest at the time of the survey, mostly the result of large fires in 1803 and 1825. Windfalls occurred along 2.6% of the surveyed distance. If the amount of disturbed forest at this time was typical of the natural disturbance regime, then the average recurrence interval of fire and large—scale windthrow for a given site would be 800 and 1,150 years, respectively. Data on the structure of remnant virgin stands in the region likewise suggest that the time interval between severe disturbances was much longer than that needed to attain a climax, all—aged structure. "

Fire is a minor player in stand dynamics in pre-settlement Maine. Truly more of a bit player. If you choose to assume that forestry practices have reduced fire loads, then the role of fire is minuscule.

It is not because of forestry that the frequency of fires has diminished. It was not the cutting over that lead to low fire frequencies. This frequency was already established. In fact, for much of the 1900's, the practice of fire suppression has lead to higher fuel loads and greater catastrophic fires. This is again, however, a mostly western issue, where fire is a major player in forest succession.

The minor role of fire in forest succession, as I have described, applies to Maine. Other eastern forests have other frequencies. The pine barrens of NJ has a freqent fire interval, as do some southeastern forests. A bit off the subject, but it needed to be addressed.

smokymtnsteve
12-16-2003, 18:01
I'm southern feller so I can't be too sure bout that there Northeast forest but in the smokies and the southern mtns ...bad logging practices around the turn of the century were responsible for the majority of fires in them thar hills.

one example of this located on the AT is the famous landmark "Charlies Bunion"
which is not a "natural" feature....it was cause by the champion corp. harvesting
methods..which I'm sure were the standard of the day...of just takeing out the boles and leaving the slash laying...this slash caught on fire and made tremedously hot fires... the one at the bunion burning across the saw teeth with still visible scars....this was not a natural fire....after this fire.... a cloudburst happened and washed the soil off the rock and denuded the bunion..

I suspect that if you checked records close enough you would find similar circumstances in the woodlands of maine....logging a big fire risk...

Alligator
12-16-2003, 18:54
I suspect that if you checked records close enough you would find similar circumstances in the woodlands of maine....logging a big fire risk...

No, you won't. I studied forest ecology, silviculture, and stand dynamics at the University of Maine. Fire is a minor disturbance agent in Maine forests, both currently and historically, regardless of logging. Have there been fires? Yes. But the frequency is extremely low, probably due to the climate.

TJ aka Teej
12-16-2003, 23:40
logging a big fire risk...
Depends on the style of cutting, doesn't it? Some kinds leave kindling like duff behind, some don't?

Suggested reading: Changes in the Land, Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England by William Cronon. If you can't find it, drop me a line and I'll loan my copy.

smokymtnsteve
12-17-2003, 09:31
your right TJakaTeej...I was referring to the kind of harvesting that went on in the smokies at the turn of the century ...

Peaks
12-17-2003, 09:50
Smoky,

Up north it also happens. Mount Monadnock is baren on top because it was burned over. I think Whitehall Mountain is baren because of fires about 100 years ago. Also, the fires on Mount Desert in 1947 left their marks. Fortunately, most of the New Hampshire and Maine forests are/have recovered from the wild fires long ago.

Thinking about the southern forests, one thing that impressed me was all the evidence of former fires along the trail. If you look, there are numerous places that have burned in years gone by. (And some more recently too).

smokymtnsteve
12-17-2003, 10:32
Peaks...were some of these fires caused by logging practices ??

inthe smokies, looging companies at the turn of the century would take only the boles and leave the slash laying ..causing really hot fires...which were very destructive..can some of the fires you refered to be traced to these practices??

Peaks
12-17-2003, 10:54
Peaks...were some of these fires caused by logging practices ??

The entire Pemigewasset valley was heavily logged (clear cut) between 1890 something and 1940 or so. Like in the Smokies, they left all the slash on the ground. About 100 years ago there were some major fires, which left Whitehall Mountain baren. Fall out from these fires included a push for conservation, passage of the Weeks Act creating the National Forest, and SPNHF (Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests). Pick up almost any history book on the White Mountains to read more about it.

For those not familiar with the area. the Pemigewasset Wilderness includes all the land east of the Franconia Ridge Trail along the ridge line, and south of the Garfield Ridge Trail/ Twinway/ Ethan Pond Trail. In fact, many of the campsites in this wilderness are on the sites of former logging camps.

weary
12-17-2003, 17:49
First let me say that this debate got off to a terrible start, since early on folks seemed to assume that the things that TJ claimed to have "learned" really were likely to happen -- or even to be seriously proposed. It's my opinion that anything like whatTJ claimed will happen, has about one chance in 100,000 of being achieved. And I doubt very much if it has even been seriously proposed. I'm sure AMC made enquiries about what was possible, given Maine law. I suspect someone has exaggerated these questions into imagined "plans."

A bit of background. I've been marginally involved in this issue for around 5 years, since when Andy Falendar appeared before the Maine Chapter, AMC board, and expressed an interest in AMC buying land in Maine. He then suggested that AMC might buy a corridor near Tumbledown Mountain, about 25 miles from the AT and construct a string of "huts" a days hike apart.

That proposal was quickly abandoned as chapter members expressed opposition. My contention was that "huts" are an anachronism of the early 1900's and no one should seriously expect such a thing to be approved today. But I said if AMC insisted on such silliness, I could go along if it was the only way to get AMC to protect 20,000 acres of surrounding land.

In the meantime AMC had an employee in Maine working with the Northern Forest Alliance. Two years later, a second AMC employee was added with the job of finding a "landscape-sized" parcel that the club could purchase.

I worked with this person marginally as a founding director of the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust, a new group that seeks to provide buffers for the trail in Maine, which in places divides a corridor as narrow as 200 feet. It was our suggestion that the land trust might help raise money in return for an easement guaranteeing a wild buffer adjacent to the trail.

AMC expressed an interest, but nothing came of the idea. But our talks allowed us a semi-insider role in the negotiations. My primary interest was in 32,000 acres being advertised by a real estate broker that called itself "creator of great estates," located south of Whitecap and east of the Barren-Chairbacks. I understand that AMC joined with several other environmental interests to submit a bid on that land. I also understand their bid was way low. I do know the the land was purchased by some Canadian forest liquidators/developers.

Later I heard AMC was negotiating with IP for the land they bought a few months later. A handful of MATC members certainly knew some talks were underway. But to claim as TJ does that "MATC has known of this for months" is absurd. The first time it was mentioned before the board of directors was in November (last month) when I reported on Little Lyford Pond purchase and told members to expect a major announcement in a few days. I couldn't say more because I was pledged to keep what I knew secret, since AMC didn't want to entice others to bid on the land.

Equally absurd is the claim that liquidation harvesting is underway with AMC's compliance. AMC had only owned the property for a week, when TJ posted his claim. AMC wants to attract people to the area. You don't do that by liquidating the forest.

Nor in all my contact with AMC have I heard them "scoff at the 'Wilderness' part of the 100-mile-wilderness." Rather they revel in the idea that they have bought a wilderness.

I know nothing about any future purchases, other than hints from AMC that it hopes eventually to own 100,000 acres. But the "paper company camps" TJ claims AMC "will" buy are mostly owned by the Nature Conservercy, which has pledged to administer the 41,000 acres it has purchased as a private wilderness. None of the camps are located a half mile from Hurd Brook Shelter. Some are five or six miles from the trail.

Maine has had a very rigid law for three decades designed to keep our so-called "wildlands" wild. Paved roads, power lines to a 200 bed development of Little Lyford, an RV campground near the hermitage, probably would require the law to be repealled, a most unlikely possibility. To claim it will happen is to reveal a gross lack of reality.

As for Maine having a "giggling" "paper company whore" as a governor. John Baldacci has been an environmentalist's delight since being elected. The state's most dedicated land protectionist has been named a deputy commissioner of Conservation. Baldacci has pledged a $100 million land purchase bond issue -- twice as big as any such bond in the past -- and probably the largest bond ever issued by the state for any reason. He's the first governor in my memory, which goes back six decades or so, to speak openly of "wilderness" protection.

What does AMC want to happen? They want 50 miles of new trails and a string over overnight accommodations a days hike apart. I welcome the new trails. I've maintained portions of the AT system in the area for the past 20 years. We should welcome new hikers to the area.

I do have misgivings about AMC dreams for a series of huts in the area. But neither am I too worried. Major regulatory battles must ensue, involving both Maine and the National Park Service, before that has a chance of happening.

Weary

Peaks
12-17-2003, 18:44
Weary,

Thanks for the information

TJ aka Teej
12-17-2003, 22:44
I've been marginally involved in this issue
Gentle readers, this is the author of the at-l post flaming me that I directed you to last week.
The Straussians leading the AMC's push into Maine love dealing with marginal people like Weary.

MOWGLI
12-18-2003, 08:53
Weary, I appreciate your efforts on behalf of the AT in Maine, and your help to put the AMC purchase in perspective. Some folks don't seem to understand what the possible alternatives are with this land.

For those of you who would actually like to do something about protecting the AT in Maine, a donation to the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust would be a good start. http://www.matlt.org/default.asp

An alternative could be to make a donation to the ATC's land trust, and ask them to spend the money in Maine. http://www.appalachiantrail.org/protect/tatl/

Blue Jay
12-18-2003, 09:40
For those of you who would actually like to do something about protecting the AT in Maine, a donation to the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust would be a good start.

This is exactly correct, now more than ever.

weary
12-18-2003, 10:54
Gentle readers, this is the author of the at-l post flaming me that I directed you to last week.
The Straussians leading the AMC's push into Maine love dealing with marginal people like Weary.
I'm not into flaming. I do try to keep the debate honest, especially when dealing with issues that could hurt the protection of the trail. The simple fact is that AMC was the only conservation buyer available for lands that were going to be sold to someone.

The alternative to AMC most likely would have been a "kingdom" buyer, someone who creates a giant houselot for himself, and posts the land against tresspass, or a condominium development on the fringes, with the balance of the land posted.

TJ tells me he can't reveal the name of his source for what he claims to have "learned." But perhaps he would be willing to show us where he has found AMC scoffing at the idea that this is wilderness. Those of us who are familiar with the area know that it is basically a commercial forest. But I have yet to hear AMC say that.

One reason why I wanted AMC to buy the 37,000 acres is because their management offers the best chance of recreating a semblance of wilderness.

Weary

weary
06-17-2004, 12:05
....A non-profit which bull-dozes an inexpensive hostel to build an education center offering $250 snowshoe classes and private rooms that will cost a couple $208 a night (or a pair of bunks for just $132 per night) is going to catch some grief, however. Its got to. Even if those rates do include breakfast and dinner and a high-speed internet connection. Especially when such a center doesn't include a hiker's room like Pinkham Notch..... Rick B

The following is from an article in Wilderness Matters, the newsletter of the Maine Chapter, AMC, which went to press yesterday:

"The AMC will offer self-service, shared bunk accommodations for up to 16 people in the Shapleigh Studio building at the Highland Center, according to an announcement by Kevin Breunig, Director of Communications, Appalachian Mountain Club.
*
"Breunig said the building is undergoing renovations to include showers, a pantry with refrigerator and microwave, and shared bunk space in two rooms.
*
"An area outside would be designated for use of camp stoves, to comply with local fire codes. Rates will be similar to self-service hut rates and will include breakfast at the main Lodge.
*
"Guests may purchase lunch and dinner separately.*The new self-service option is expected to be available by the end of June. *Members can call AMC reservations now at 603-466-2727."

Weary

minnesotasmith
09-17-2004, 12:40
after doing an AT through-hike, to do a hike across Alaska, West to East, from Nome to the Canadian border, just south of the Brooks Range. That will give me all the wilderness/solitude experience I could want, I'd think. Like I said, I'll do the AT first, while it is as pristine as possible.

weary
11-01-2004, 00:15
http://www.outdoors.org/conservation/maine/mainewoods-announce.shtml

The AMC is really spinning this issue, taking every opportunity to scoff at the "wilderness" part of the 100 Mile Wilderness. By the way, the photo on the AMC page is supposed to be Little Lyford Pond and Baker Mountain. It isn't - it's Katahdin from the shore of Compass Pond. Idiots.
I have learned:
The MATC has known about this for months.
This will be a 4 season recreation/education project.
Liquidation logging operations are now underway.
The AMC will also buy, expand, and operate the several Paper Company rental cabins at the North end of the 100 Mile. One is just 1/2 mile from the Hurd Brook Lean-to.
KI road upgrade cost to be shared by AMC and the State, plan is pavement from Greenville to Route 11.
Lyford Pond Camps Area to upgrade to "major" year round accommodations facility, planning says 150-200 beds, including conference center, and "demonstration scale" solar, wind, and hydro power generation. That stuff is just for show, regular utility lines to Lyford Pond will be lain in.
Hemitage area campgrounds to be modernized and expanded to 80 sites, a mix of tenting, RV, cabins, and lean-tos.
AMC visitor centers planned for downtown Greenville, the Hermitage/Gulf Hagas parking area, and at the Katahdin Iron Works gate site.
Maine's new Governor (A paper company whore, in my personal opinion) has been reported as giggling while showing around an AMC map, with new logging areas, new roads and bridges, and new trails for hiking/snowsleding/skiing colored in.
I spent the weekend on the 37,000 acres that AMC has purchased in the 100-mile-wilderness and thought a progress report might be appropriate.

This is what I observed during a Maine Chapter, AMC "retreat" held at Little Lyford Pond Camps, beginning Friday and concluding Sunday. So far there is no sign of the planned 150-200 beds that TJ thinks are planned.

Major changes I saw since I last visited the area last December:

The kitchen and dining room has been moved from an ancient log building to a new log building built several years ago as a home for former proprietors of the camps.

The former kitchen, dining room has been converted to a bunk house with 14 bunk beds.

A small dilapitated greenhouse has been torn down and replaced by a herb garden.

The gravel road in from Greenville has gotten even more rutted, so rutted that I went back out through Brownville, still gravel, despite TJ's fears, but somewhat smoother.

The same seven or eight old log cabins -- some allegedly dating to 1873 -- remain, though new beds have been placed in those that I looked at. Each has an ancient wood stove, which guests are expected to light themselves. Privies remain the only toilet facilities. The camps still have no showers and as near as I could tell, none are planned. A sauna was not operating. A "guest" a few days earlier had left the drafts open and melted part of the sauna's stove -- and nearly burned down the sauna building.

Still no sign of the alleged plans for demonstration windmills, solar and hydro projects. The latter seems especially unlikely since the west Branch of the Pleasant River is considered by the state to have the wildest wild trout remaining in Maine. The West Branch has never been stocked and only one small non native minnow has invaded what is otherwise a stream that is virtually identical to what existed when Europeans first invaded the New World. The chances of getting approval for a hydro-electric dam in what the Department of Inland Fisheries Department considers one of its finest wild trout streams thus seem a somewhat iffy proposition.

There are some new trails. I hiked the Indian Mountain Trail to a high overlook that provides a startling view of the Gulf Hagas Mt to Whitecap Range.

I also followed an improved trail along the river toward Gulf Hagas.

Saturday we toured by car and foot the 10,000 acre eco-preserve in the northeastern corner of the 37,000 acre AMC holdings. The wild ponds were spectacular, though marred by scores of canoes and boats left along the shores by fishermen -- some still in good condition, but many derelict junks.

A disappointment was the surrounding forest that had been heavily clearcut a few years ago by former owners.

Today (Sunday) we visited the area to the south where AMC contractors harvested 5,300 cords of wood last summer. Judging from the leaves and brush left behind the harvest consisted mostly of diseased beech, removed to provide space for yellow birch, sugar (rock) maple and white ash to grow.

Much of the southern forest had also been clearcut by prior owners and large areas had been replanted into spruce plantations. The prior owners had sprayed the plantations with herbicides, but AMC said they would not repeat the practice because they wanted a mixed forest to develop.

The holder of one of the 14 private leases that exist on the property passed us in his pickup truck. After chatting for a few moments, he invited us to visit his camp and see the skins of the seven coyotes he had trapped. I found the skins and his account of the wildlife in the area fascinating, but not all chapter directors shared my view.

He said trapping was just a hobby. "It costs me far more than the skins will sell for," he said.

As near as I could tell from conversations with the AMC staff, their operations are also unprofitable. They said the forestry effort "about broke even" while the operations of the Little Lyford POnd camps lost money. We are still working out the proper combination of prices to charge and staff needs, one said.

My conclusion from the three days: Little Lyford Pond camps provide a delightful experience in a set of camps that haven't basically changed in 130 years.

I forgot to mention one more change. The parking lot is 300 yards or so from the camps. Last December we drove right to the camps. This time we were told that is no longer allowed. You have to carry your gear in, though AMC does supply a rickety garden cart for those without backpacks.

Weary

walkin' wally
11-01-2004, 19:29
Hi Weary,

You said in a previous post that no one should expect a series of "huts to be approved nowadays. ( not verbatim)
Isn't that precisely what the folks who want to create a trail from Rockwood to Newry want to do? This is the trail that was or is to cross the Bigelow range. I believe this would be somewhat high-end lodging.

On another note,
I have talked to AMC folks in Greenville this summer and they said that the area they bought would not become another White Mountain type development. They seemed sincere. I hope that is the case.

On another note,
Kingdom buyers, as you know, are a real fact of life in Maine and have changed the ways or options that people have enjoyed Maine probably since settlement. We have had a freedom to travel with respect on private property for many generations. This is a distinction that many other states probably have never had. I find it sad that we are losing these privileges in certain areas because of people do not understand what it is like to live in Maine with Maine values. We may never regain those priviledges.

weary
11-01-2004, 20:08
Hi Weary,

You said in a previous post that no one should expect a series of "huts to be approved nowadays. ( not verbatim)
Isn't that precisely what the folks who want to create a trail from Rockwood to Newry want to do? This is the trail that was or is to cross the Bigelow range. I believe this would be somewhat high-end lodging. .

I don't remember what I said in the post you mention. But I don't believe the White Mountain huts would be approved for construction today. I think it very possible that a hut system through the valleys as proposed by AMC and others would be approved.


On another note,
I have talked to AMC folks in Greenville this summer and they said that the area they bought would not become another White Mountain type development. They seemed sincere. I hope that is the case. .

You have to ask precisely and listen to the answers closely, these days. I think that when AMC speaks of a "White Mountain type development" they are thinking of huts on the high ridges. That isn't under consideration. But some full service facilities (huts) through the valleys, connected by trails is definitely in the thinking, though no final decisions have been made.


On another note,
Kingdom buyers, as you know, are a real fact of life in Maine and have changed the ways or options that people have enjoyed Maine probably since settlement. We have had a freedom to travel with respect on private property for many generations. This is a distinction that many other states probably have never had. I find it sad that we are losing these privileges in certain areas because of people do not understand what it is like to live in Maine with Maine values. We may never regain those priviledges.

I agree. I think AMC is probably the best possible buyer for the land they have purchased, though I don't necessarily agree with all that they hope to do with that land.

Most of the land around the AMC purchase is on the market. Unfortunately, I don't sense that AMC has the resources to make additional purchases now, especially since rumors suggest the price has doubled in just the past year.

Nor do I know of any other "conservation" buyers waiting on the sidelines. The situation is quite ominous. Our MAT Land Trust is tied up at the moment trying to raise the money needed to pay back the loan we took out to buy land on Abraham and Saddleback.

If anyone wants to help, our address remains: MAT Land Trust, PO Box 325, Yarmouth, Maine 04096. The web site is:
www.matlt.org

Weary

Peaks
11-02-2004, 08:10
Dave Publicover, AMC's "Senior Scientist" will be speaking on the Maine Initiative and AMC's plans for 37000 acres of Maine forest land that it owns at AMC's Worcester Chapter's Annual dinner meeting on November 13. Go to www.amcworcester.org for details.

Aesop
11-02-2004, 13:58
Kingdom buyers, as you know, are a real fact of life in Maine and have changed the ways or options that people have enjoyed Maine probably since settlement. We have had a freedom to travel with respect on private property for many generations. This is a distinction that many other states probably have never had. I find it sad that we are losing these privileges in certain areas because of people do not understand what it is like to live in Maine with Maine values. We may never regain those priviledges.
WW,
What is a kingdom buyer? And can you please tell me what it is like to live in Maine with Maine values, as I am stuck in NC and don't have a clue?

walkin' wally
11-02-2004, 20:00
Hi Aesop,

(I imagine that things like this occur in other states but I don't get around that much.)

Without going into a lot of detail about Kingdom Buyers here goes. We have some extremely wealthy folks who come here from out of state with large amounts of money and buy an entire township or two or three. Usually unorganized territory. A township sometimes in Maine is 6 miles by 6 miles or 36 square miles. A lot of land for a seasonal dwelling. Once they have ownership they impose their rules and regulations and stop activities that have taken place for generations. That may be okay in some instances especially if the land is being degraded. Often times though they are bringing their strict rules, from away, without regard for traditions that have taken place for a long time. Some of these traditions are seen as politically incorrect by these people and they are going to do their darndest to stop it if they can. Apparently Maine people don't know how to manage their affairs. So lets change life in Maine etc etc.
People in Maine cannot afford to buy land at these prices and we see our heritage slipping away. Like Weary says the price of land is rising with every sale that occurs.
There has been some major changes that have brought on these land sales and they involve the financial strategies of paper companies that no longer want to hold large parcels of land.
One thing that is unique and may not be the norm in other places ( I don't know) is that the water and the wildlife belongs to the people of the state, not a particular landowner. So we have people that have bought the entire shorelines of large lakes and small ponds ( or tried to ) to try to do just the opposite.

On and on it goes.

Sorry for the rambling and probably going off topic. :sun

weary
11-02-2004, 22:27
WW,
What is a kingdom buyer? And can you please tell me what it is like to live in Maine with Maine values, as I am stuck in NC and don't have a clue?

Walkin Wally has given us the basics, but essentially, for generations a handful of paper companies and a few families owned most of Maine. They managed these lands to provide raw materials for the paper mills and lumber mills of Maine and neighboring Canadian provinces.

Because they controlled most of the land and most of the jobs, they also controled the political landscape as well. Legislatures rarely did anything the companies didn't want.

Unfortunately, over the decades the independent Maine companies were gobbled up by multi-national conglomerates, whose concerns were not raw materials needed for future operations and future jobs for Maine people, but short term profits that were needed to keep stock prices high and management bonuses coming in.

These concerns won out. Rather than managing the forest for long term profits, the new owners managed the forest for short term profits and maximum management stock options and bonuses.

The result: The forest was over cut. Quick profits, not sustainable forestry became the goal. More trees were cut and turned into paper and lumber than could be sustained. As the wood supply diminished, mills either closed, were forced into bankruptcy or sold to junk dealers hoping to glean a last bit of profit from an industry dying from a lack of resources.

Being wise the conglomerates sold these cut over lands to investors enticed by the low prices. These investor groups bought 30 per cent of Maine for $200 an acre. It was one of the great investments of modern times. People quickly realized that this was spectacular country -- great undeveloped lakes, hundreds of miles of lakes and streams: in fact the last wild country of the east.

Prices in the depth of a recession grew 20 percent a year. As the recovery began, the land price increases jumped 50 percent a year, and growing.

A year ago AMC paid less than $400 an acre for 37,000 acres. Identical land is now being negotiated for sale at $800 an acre.

Unfortunately, all the buyers are speculators, who see a chance to double their money in another 12 months.

What do we mean by Maine values? This land formerly provided the best paying jobs in the state. And spectacular wildland recreation. Mill workers were the best paid workers in the state. Thousands of them leased waterfront lots on remote lakes and streams. People from all over Maine used these lands for hunting, fishing, camping, canoeing, hiking....

No Tresspassing signs virtually didn't exist in half the state with no municipal governments, nor in millions of acres adjacent to these unorganized places. All that is changing. Kingdom buyers -- wealthy people buying whole towns for their private enjoyment rarely welcome unwashed mill workers wandering through their holdings. Neither do land speculators hoping to sell to luxury wildland condominium developers and subdividers

We remain on the tip of the iceberg of the changes underway. More mills are certain to close because there is no longer the wood supply to keep them in operation, and because land prices have grown so dramatically that no longer is it feasible to buy land with the intention of using them for simply growing wood.

And the wild land speculation is certain to continue to the detriment to the Maine economy, the forest jobs that have driven the Maine economy for two centuries, and the dream of a few to generate the resources needed to preserve the last genuine wild place in the east.

Weary

minnesotasmith
11-03-2004, 11:54
1) It may well be that the price of rural land is skyrocketing in Maine. However, this is IMO unsustainable, a speculative bubble akin to the NASDAQ only a few years ago, and like land price runups going on in much of the country. I fully expect that as those speculators go bankrupt when it all falls down to earth, that the prices for over-appreciated (financially, not esthetically) rural ME land will go down by an order of magnitude. I expect this within 15 years.

2) As far as the common people/ME natives not being able to enjoy the wild land any more in the meantime due to out-of-state speculators snatching it all up without regard for longstanding state land usage customs...

Well, once the non-ME speculators lose it all, that will arguably not be much of an issue. If it's 1933 X 5, whether or not some Mainer is hiking/fishing/hunting on roadless land they don't own will be a "machs nicht" situation, definitely small beer in the wider view.

Of course, if you live in Maine, and either don't agree with my expectations about how things will change, or don't want to wait for economic disaster to fix this problem, there's always Alaska. Better tax situation, less pollution, more room, not dissimiliar climate, and better land usage rules, RIGHT NOW. :clap

walkin' wally
11-03-2004, 18:59
Hi Minnesota Smith,

A couple of quick points :-?

1 I am under the impression that land would hold it's value once the price is driven up? We have a huge urban population to the south in Mass and NY There is no more new land being created anywhere except maybe Hawaii. People are looking to northern New England as a vacuum as far as populations go. We are a fairly large state for the region with only 1.25 million people. Sorry demographics and economics are not my strong point.

2 Weary is right but the paper companies are also not able to compete with paper mills overseas. I have been in the paper industry for 33 years and have even worked on a log drive. Wood has not been a procurement problem for us but low cost producers in Asia have. My company has just given a company in China 60 million dollars to use as they see fit. This allows my company to invest in a greenfield (new) paper mill in China. (Re: low wages and no EPA.)
We have just had a large capital rebuild shelved because of this. So they say.

Thanks, I'll pass on Alaska. I just read that they are facing some of the same referendum questions that we have in Maine. I'll just live here for better or worse. :sun

weary
11-03-2004, 19:52
1) It may well be that the price of rural land is skyrocketing in Maine. However, this is IMO unsustainable, a speculative bubble akin to the NASDAQ only a few years ago, and like land price runups going on in much of the country. I fully expect that as those speculators go bankrupt when it all falls down to earth, that the prices for over-appreciated (financially, not esthetically) rural ME land will go down by an order of magnitude. I expect this within 15 years.

Hmmm. I've heard similar predictions for the past 60 years, but somehow, none have ever come true. The price just keeps going up. Most of the land speculation profits go to out of state investors (speculators).

Why? People from New York, Massachusetts and similar places compare Maine prices with prices in their states and consider Maine land a bargain. Mainer's remember what the land sold for yesterday and think the price outrageous.

When I bought my house and land 42 years for $2,950. (It wasn't much of a house, only partly wired, no plumbing, a rotted off cellar door, a dooryard overgrown with burdock) everyone I asked advised against the purchase. "Why do you want that piece of junk on that polluted river?" I was asked.

Now they say, "aren't you lucky to have a place on the water?"

Well, that luck is leavened somewhat by the tax assessor who thinks my value has increased 100 fold.

Despite the dramatic increase in selling prices of Maine woodlands, Maine land remains a bargain when compared with land elsewhere in the nation. I fervently hope Minnesotasmith is right. But sadly, I very much doubt it.

Weary

minnesotasmith
11-04-2004, 01:42
Walking Wally, you said:

"1 I am under the impression that land would hold it's value once the price is driven up?"

You may want to read these two historical excerpts from "Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds (http://www.litrix.com/madraven/madne001.htm)" by Charles MacKay.

http://www.litrix.com/madraven/madne003.htm

http://www.litrix.com/madraven/madne004.htm

Above all, do compare the phenomena described above with the run-up in land prices described elsewhere on this thread, especially in Weary's last post about a parcel going up in price 100x when not much about the land itself has changed. There is a long-known fundamental principle of economics that a component of an economy or market cannot increase its proportion of the total value of that economy or market indefinitely. Otherwise, there would eventually become a situation where only the providers of that one good or service would be getting paid, while every other good and service was rendered for free. Obviously, that is nonsense, and won't happen; instead, the inflated price of a commodity that has run up in price will come back to earth, generally at a level well under half of what it sold for at its peak, often falling much more quickly than it rose in price.

Lastly, consider the possibility that in large part the land has not increased much in price in real terms; rather, that the money has lost most of its value. I consider this a proven fact; just consider how gold (a store of value that does not lose its value the way all fiat currencies eventually do) costs about 15x what it did two generations ago. Multiplying 1/15th by 100%, you get a figure of our money having lost around 94% of its value. Only about 6% left to go...

Aesop
11-04-2004, 08:28
Without going into a lot of detail about Kingdom Buyers here goes. We have some extremely wealthy folks who come here from out of state with large amounts of money and buy an entire township or two or three. The whole thing angers and saddens me. I wish I were wealthy so I could buy up all the land and give it back to itself forever.

walkin' wally
11-04-2004, 09:07
'Many' years ago I spent some time at Ft Bragg N.C. Back then motorcycle racing was popular on the forested outskirts of the base or just off the base. Before many things became politically correct the locals and servicemen had a great time going up and down a place called mud hill. You can imagine how they would have felt if someone just came along and said; No More... And that is not just to mention motorcycles either.

Rocks 'n Roots
11-08-2004, 00:24
I think the wise man sees through promises of self-moderation by market structure. Nothing has changed over the last century. Market definitions haven't changed, nor have the forces that drive them.


A wise man would look at the average and know the Maine woods are cooked unless we save them. Those talking of magic technical restraints are whispering sweet market opium in the face of a real Maine/AT tragedy...

Peaks
11-14-2004, 09:39
Dave Publicover, AMC's "Senior Scientist" will be speaking on the Maine Initiative and AMC's plans for 37000 acres of Maine forest land that it owns at AMC's Worcester Chapter's Annual dinner meeting on November 13. Go to www.amcworcester.org for details.

As I understood Dave Publicover say, there are several things to report. First, for all of us who hike the AT, AMC is very sensitive to the AT corridor. Doesn't sound like anything is planned that will affect the AT corridor, expect possibily a trail crossing sometime in the future so hikers can get from one side of the property to the other. Currently, the only crossing now on the AMC property is the KIW road. Sounds like they will have the concurrence of Maine ATC before they make any changes that impact the AT.

Our second concern is development, such as huts, cabins, and shelters. Currently there are several privately owned cabins on the property (they lease land from the former land owner), predominately on lakes and away from the AT. In the future, these are prime candidates for converting to backcountry facilities (unstaffed campsite, or caretaker cabins).

Currently there is something like 113 miles of roads on the property, open to the public. AMC has closed some of these roads, and will close others, but not the main road to KIW. Also, there are snowmobile trails on the property. AMC has closed a couple of them. The remaining ones are main corridors, and will stay open unless rerouted off the property. So, AMC is trying to make the area more remote by making it less vehicle accessible.

AMC did about 5000 cords of logging this past year to get some money for taxes and such. This was done as "sustainable" forest logging, and not the usual rip and tear type logging. They plan to continue to do this type of logging.

AMC is building trails on the property, but away from the AT.

Bottom line, they appear to be practicing what their conservation people have been preaching. Weary, correct me if I misquoted.

weary
11-14-2004, 10:25
Bottom line, they (AMC) appear to be practicing what their conservation people have been preaching. Weary, correct me if I misquoted.

I think that is a fair summary of the current planning effort. I remain concerned about the number and location of full service facilities that AMC continues to want. No decisions have been made on how many and where these will be located. But their construction will be certain to change the nature of what some think of as a "wilderness."

Technically, it is not a wilderness in that the signs of human intrusion are every where. The northern quarter of the 37,000 acres will be set aside as an ecological preserve, which means no timber harvesting or groomed cross country ski trails. I toured the proposed preserve a couple of weeks ago and was shocked by how heavily it had been clearcut by the former land owner. But trees grow quickly in the northeast and a semblance of wildness will emerge over the decades. Most of Baxter Park was purchased by Governor Baxter after the land had been harvested or purchased subject to one more harvest. But a half century later Baxter Park is the closest thing to wilderness in the East.

In return for a million dollar grant from the state, most of the land AMC has purchased will be subject to a conservation easement. I hear unofficially that AMC wants to exempt five areas for possible locations of full service "huts," and a number of other areas for self service rental cabins on the several lakes and ponds.

That doesn't mean that five huts will actually be built. AMC apparently wants five potential sites from which to choose three sites. But all this is still in the discussion stages. As near as I can tell the planning effort has slowed in recent weeks. At least the committee hasn't been meeting.

Little Lyford Pond Camps that are now owned by AMC remain a delightful place, a year after AMC purchased them. The log cabin home of the former owner has been turned into a dining hall and kitchen. And the former dining hall is now a bunk house. The camps are located on the edge of the proposed ecological preserve and are surrounded by newly created cross country ski trails. I especially recommend the two mile trail to a high overlook on Indian Mountain. The overlooks provide a very different perspective of both the Barren Chairback Range and the Gulf Hagas Mountain to Whitecap Range.

Weekend rates are around $100 per person for the cabins and $75 for the bunk house. There are discounts for mid week visits and children. The fees include meals.

Weary

Peaks
11-14-2004, 16:54
From the way things sounded, full service huts are a long way off, if ever. Full service is expensive to run, so the camps must be profitable before making that step. I suspect that for the foreseeable future, there will be self service cabins, shelters, and campsites. But, in 50 years, who knows.

I don't think we need to worry about full service for a long time.

weary
11-14-2004, 18:36
From the way things sounded, full service huts are a long way off, if ever. Full service is expensive to run, so the camps must be profitable before making that step. I suspect that for the foreseeable future, there will be self service cabins, shelters, and campsites. But, in 50 years, who knows. I don't think we need to worry about full service for a long time.

I hope you are right. That's been my message to AMC for more than a year now. But full service was still on the agenda when Publicover spoke at the Maine Chapter annual meeting Oct. 2 and again when chapter directors had a retreat at Little Lyford Pond two weeks ago.

But I do sense the effort has slowed. The planning committee has not met in many weeks.

I make a point of reminding the planners that Myron Avery wrote in the 1930s that one could hike Maine with a day pack, staying at a sporting camp each night, and that all except Little Lyford Pond Camps has since closed from a lack of customers and profits.

If you ask, AMC will tell you that even Little Lyford has not been profitable under AMC's management. They are still trying to figure out the proper ratio of staff and guests and what combination of fees will keep the beds filled enough so that break even is possible.

I don't think anyone thinks the operation will pay for the capital costs of acquisition. But as near as I can tell AMC has always expected their overnight facilities to pay for the day to day operations.

However, I have no secret insight into AMC. I've been active in conservation matters in the Maine Chapter and edit the newsletter but my first venture into the inner circles has been my involvement with the club's Maine Woods Initiative.

Nor, for that matter does AMC have particular land management insights. This is the first large property the club has ever owned. I sense they are still feeling their way.

Despite what some think is excessive fees, I do urge those who can afford it to visit the camps. It truly is a delightful place. I'd still think so had I paid the $100. My first visit was to help build cross country ski trails and they charged us just $20 for food. The chapter paid almost all the cost of our two night Halloween retreat.

Weary

hikerdude
11-14-2004, 20:55
I'm leaving right now for Gorham <> Speck. Don't worry, I bring 4 pound snowshoes and a 10 pound tent in case. Unless you worried about my knees again? Just worry I don't fall on em.:jump Now were are the dancing girls and casinos again? I'll be looking and let you know.:banana

weary
10-07-2006, 13:33
The following is a press release from AMC. It's a good development, since it keeps new construction out of the 100-mile-wilderness.

Weary

The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) will be managing Chairback Mountain Camps near Greenville to provide guests with backcountry recreational opportunities at this traditional sporting camp in Maine’s 100-Mile Wilderness region.

AMC plans to open the camps to members as well as the general public in the second half of 2007. The operating season has not yet been finalized.
The AMC has reached an agreement with current leaseholders to manage Chairback Mountain Camps as a sporting camp open to the general public.

The current leaseholders will continue to have access to the camps for a period of time as part of the agreement. AMC will operate the camps, located on Long Pond on the AMC’s Katahdin Iron Works property, as a destination for fly-fishing, paddling, snowshoeing and skiing as part of its broader Maine Woods Initiative.

The Maine Woods Initiative is a strategy for land conservation in the 100-Mile Wilderness region that combines outdoor recreation, resource protection, sustainable forestry, and community partnerships. Over time, the AMC plans to work with partners to build trails linking sporting camps in the region.

The camps were originally known as York’s Long Pond Camps, a commercial sporting camp. In recent years, the property has been operated as a private camp. The camps lie on the original route of the Appalachian Trail through Maine.

*“We see the re-opening of Chairback Camps to the public as another step in offering a broad range of nature-based recreational opportunities in the region,” said Walter Graff, deputy director of the AMC. “Chairback offers some exciting possibilities for camp-to-camp skiing, dog-sledding and hiking, and is a spectacular destination in its own right.”

Chairback is the third sporting camp to come under AMC management in the past three years. In 2003, the club purchased Little Lyford Pond Camps, and last month, it purchased Medawisla Wilderness Camps. All are open to the public.

The AMC’s Maine Woods Initiative seeks to address the ecological and economic needs of the Maine Woods region by supporting local forest products jobs and traditional recreation, creating new multi-day recreational experiences for visitors, and attracting new nature-based tourism to the region.

The AMC’s 37,000-acre Katahdin Iron Works property continues to be open for use by the public year ’round as part of the KI Jo-Mary Multiple-Use Forest. Local residents and guests are welcome to hike, paddle, hunt and fish on the property as they have for generations.

More information on the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Maine Woods Initiative is available at www.outdoors.org/mwi.
Founded in 1876, the Appalachian Mountain Club is the nation’s oldest conservation and recreation organization. With 90,000 members, including 3,600 members in Maine, the AMC promotes the protection, enjoyment, and wise use of the mountains, rivers, and trails of the Appalachian region.

The AMC has a long history of operating recreational facilities in Maine. The organization operates Echo Lake Camp on Mt. Desert Island, as well as Beal Island and Knubble Bay camps in Georgetown.