White House Landing Closed for 2014

[Old Hillwalker]

There have been several references here and on FB lately about resupply and access to a phone at WHL. I wanted to correct these references, but don't know if it is still closed. I would hate to see anyone counting on access if it is in fact not accepting hikers.

[Old Hillwalker]

Thanks Chief.

[The Solemates]

It's still listed for sale at a price that would be hard to make a go of it for someone making payments. I expect it will either sell at a substantial discount at some point or will end up as a private camp. If the owners aren't making payments, the carrying costs for land in unorganized townships isn't outrageous so they can probably afford to wait. There is a market for remote camps in Maine especially if the property is owned, there are a lot of camps on leased lots in that region although I haven't looked if any are on the same lake.

http://www.campsforsalemaine.com/whi...-maine-44.html

is the property of WHL owned or leased?

[peakbagger]

The listing lists it as owned, generally if its leased they will mention it. Given the access it was probably once in the GNP landholdings. On rare occasions they did sell land or it may have been an inholding. Generally when lots up in that area are owned they aren't listed for very long. The hassle with all these lots are that even though they may have deeded access rights, they are only accessible if the major landholder elects to keep the roads open. Logging pounds the heck out of the roads and if the major landowner doesn't fix it after a cut, the road rapidly become impassible. I have never visited the camps but it looks like there may be one or two other camps nearby? they may share in maintenance but once a beaver plugs a major culvert, and washes out the road that's the end until the major landowner needs to access it again. Alternatively the major landowner may assess a road maintenance fee that is far more than a lease ever was.

Brookfield Hydro bought the GNP hydroelectric system and inherited a lot of camp leases, they stated in the news last year or the year before that they weren't interested in being landlords and planned to sell the leases back to the lease holders. I don't know if it happened with the Brookfield leases but in similar situations, the camp owners get a non negotiable cost that they have to pay and its usually well in excess of the worth of the camp. I knew of some folks on a similar lake in Maine with a family camp that has two 100 foot lots and the cost was 350k to buy out their lease and this was about 8 years ago. Generally if a lease holder elects not to continue they have to remove the structure unless the leasing firm allows them to leave it.

[RockDoc]

I don't miss that guy. He loved to say how much he hated hiking, which he called "prolonged misery".
Very dismissive attitude about hiking food as well, believed that we want candy and junk food. Some do, but not the smart ones.

I asked specifically about fruit, vegetables, and nuts and was sternly insulted for making such an absurd suggestion.

[mrcoffeect]

Since 2008 I have had the good fortune to spend close to 30 days roofing, building or hiking and relaxing as a guest of bill and linda's. And I consider them to be very good friends of mine. And one thing I can say bill does not have an attitude toward hikers in general, just toward whiners. When your at their place you are at one of the most beautiful places on this side of north america. And in the grand scheme of things out of all the billions of people that have been or ever will be, you get to be one of just a handful of humans to enjoy the peace and beauty of that place. And what defines some folks experience there, is weather or not they had vegetables or their kind of soda, or I couldnt charge my whing-ding.

[swjohnsey]

Ole Bill left me sitting on the dock for a couple of hours. If he heard me whining he had good ears.

[mrcoffeect]

I have had times where my shuttle driver has been more than an hour late. I didn't get my nose all out of joint over it even though I was a paying customer. I was still thankfull that someone took time out of their day to help me. You can tell a whole lot about a person by the way they treat someone they hire.