[at-l] Yurts in the New England Wilderness

["David F. Addleton" <dfaddleton@mindspring.com>]

From CNN's web site Travel section:

MILLSFIELD, New Hampshire (AP) -- The trail up the side of an unnamed mountain in the unincorporated North Country town of Millsfield is the perfect place for the uninitiated to study animal tracks. 
The abandoned logging road isn't completely covered with vegetation, and the uncovered soil highlights the passage of moose, deer, bear and other wildlife that crosses the narrow path into the thick forest. 
There's plenty to see. In the space of an hour one recent afternoon, two moose, one large and one small, and a large deer crossed the trail, leaving obvious signs of their passing. Spend enough time and visitors are almost guaranteed to stumble across animals, especially moose. 
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Near the top of the mountain is the Millsfield Yurt, styled after those round Mongolian structures. It's a completely equipped outpost that sleeps six. Visitors can get the flavor of the New Hampshire wilderness in relative comfort. 
It's one of seven such yurts tucked away on land owned by the International Paper Co. along the Phillips Brook. They are designed to give visitors a base in the outdoors from where they can ski, hike, hunt, fish, mountain bike or ride horses -- any non-motorized activity. 
Outdoor experiment
It's a new concept in wilderness recreation, one that some say could become more prevalent in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine as public lands become increasingly overcrowded and inaccessible. 
"Phillips Brook is the experiment to see if we can have low-cost recreation in the backcountry," says Bill Altenburg of Fryeburg, Maine, who founded the company Timberland Trails, Inc., based in Conway. "There's nothing in the eastern United States like what we are doing." 
What makes the Phillips Brook Recreation Area unusual is that it's run as a for-profit company on privately owned land. The International Paper Co. leases the land to Timberland Trails. 
 
Chelsi, front, and Julie VanPatten, of Greenland, New Hampshire, prepare their horses for a ride in the 24,000-acre recreation area  

In addition to the yurts, there's a lodge on the shores of the Phillips Pond that sleeps 12 in private bedrooms. It, too, is fully equipped and even has an outdoor hot tub. 
There are 75 miles of trails crisscrossing the 24,000-acre valley, between Route 110 and Dixville Notch. 
The timber companies across northern New England traditionally keep their land open to the public, much of it for free. That remains true in Phillips Brook. 
"We have day users who go up and hike to a yurt, have lunch and ride back out," Altenburg says. "That's exactly what we want. They all come back sooner or later and stay." 
Hikers and harvesters
The Phillips Brook Wilderness is a working forest. The sounds of mechanical tree harvesters or chain saws frequently echo through the valley and visitors occasionally have to share the gravel access roads with logging trucks. 
But the valley is big enough so people can stay out of the areas that are being logged and stick to the trails, or for the more adventurous, explore the untracked forests. 
"If an International Paper can make some money off Phillips Brook, that's to the benefit of the public," says Richard Ober, a spokesman of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. "It's going to make it more likely they'll be able to hold onto that land. With high recreational use, perhaps they can practice a kind of lighter-hand in the logging." 
Altenburg, a landscape architect by training who used to work in the ski industry, conceived the idea after seeing people get priced out of downhill skiing, and he saw unofficial trails near his hometown go unused. 
For Phillips Brook, he used as a model the hut system run in the White Mountain National Forest by the Appalachian Mountain Club and another private hut system in Colorado run on public land. 
"I covered all of northern New England looking for a quiet valley," Altenburg says. "When I called IP, they had back in 1993 a program to increase recreation revenues on their land. I was lucky to catch the forester who had that job. IP was very excited about the possibilities." 
 
Bill Altenburg, founder and president of Timberland Trails, Inc., stands outside the lodge at Phillips Brook. The wilderness area, owned by International Paper Co., has been leased to TImberland Trails, allowing visitors to enjoy outdoor activities and rustic accommodations  

Areas in both Maine and Vermont were discarded because he felt regulatory requirements there made his idea impractical. 
"In Maine, what we were told was one little yurt over here doesn't have much of an impact, but if you put 10 yurts in and connect them with trails that's different," Altenburg says. "My little yurt system would have gotten reviewed the same as if it would have been a nuclear power plant." 
Then International Paper suggested Phillips Brook. 
Popular in winter
The Phillips Brook Backcountry Recreation Area was host to its first guest in 1997. 
"People have not only been honest, they've been wonderful with good backcountry ethics," Alterburg says. "In 3 1/2-years we haven't had anybody misuse a yurt. Our biggest problem is moose. They see (the trails) as highways." 
 
Karen Coker and Paul Mullaney relax inside their yurt at Phillips Brook  

Right now the yurts and the lodge are most heavily used in the winter. There's nothing comparable for people who want to cross-country ski, snowshoe or run dogsleds. 
There's no electricity in the yurts. The water is trucked in. There's a gas stove, gas lighting, a fully equipped kitchen and plenty of firewood that can be burned in the wood stove. All visitors need to spend the night is their own food and a sleeping bag. 
Altenburg is in the process of adding four more yurts, which will give him a total of 80 beds in the valley. That's enough to make a small profit on operating expenses, but not enough to repay his start-up costs, he says. 
To get a return on that initial investment, Altenburg says he would need to expand his system to about 200 beds and add other infrastructure. But before he will make that commitment he needs a long-term lease from International Paper. 
Altenburg sees his concept of backcountry recreation as a growing business. He was in Washington state recently pitching the concept to a timber company there. After that, he thinks it could work in other parts of the world. 
He recognizes he's got to balance the need to get a return on his investment with the need to keep the Phillips Brook valley wild. 
"It doesn't feel like its adventurous if you are always bumping into people," Altenburg says. "Our terrain is big enough and diverse enough, with all the different mountains and valleys, I think we can be big enough to pay back our capital and not become a resort. 
"People come there to get away from resorts." 


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