[at-l] more Trail, corridor and campsites

[Bob C." <ellen@clinic.net (Bob C.)]

"...one thing the AMC is doing that sounds rather good is that they are building
a  new  loop trail out of Grafton Notch. Thats a real neat section of mountains,
so I can't see how that could be anything but a good thing." writes Rick.

AMC  members  are  participating  and perhaps the AMC professional trail crew is
helping,  but  the  major  work  is being done by Maine Appalalachian Trail Club
volunteers  under  the  leadership of Paul Johnson, the overseer of the Baldpate
District.

Paul  will  be  running work trips a half dozen times this spring and summer. If
list volunteers want to help, let me know and I'll send you his email address.

The  instigator  of  the trail building effort was a private landowner who owned
several  thousand acres near the Maine Public Reserve lands that protects around
40,000  acres  in the Mahoosuc - Baldpate Region. The landowner thought it would
be  neat to have a new loop trail from the AT through his land and other private
lands and back to the AT.

I  don't think of myself as having a "big mouth" but I do have wordy fingers and
both like mountains and have a reasonable memory.

Midway  through  the  10 year court battle over the recovery of 400,000 acres of
Maine's  public  domain  several  companies  offered  to  negotiate out of court
settlements.

One  of  those  was  Brown  Paper Co., then owner of the mill that straddles the
Gorham  and  Berlin  NH  town line. The negotiator called one day and asked what
would  be  good  land to accept in place of the scattered 1,000-acre public lots
that the state was claiming to own.

I recalled that AMC a few years earlier had set as its goal "the preservation of
the  Mahoosuc  Range,"  which  was  being  eyed  by  ski  area  and  condominium
developers, and replied, "as much of the Mahoosucs as you can get." The Preserve
now runs from the astate line at Carlos Col over Goose Eye, and through Mahoosuc
Notch to Old Speck. Later the twin Baldpate summits and surrounding forest lands
were added to the Preserve.

Other  than  the  narrow AT corridor in New Hampshire, Maine's Mahoosuc Preserve
comprises most of the Mahoosucs that trail advocates have managed to protect.

Weary