[at-l] Kennebec Bridge

[ellen at clinic.net (Bob C.)]

>"...if you are going to argue at lesst get your facts straight... The federal
>government owns only very small section (Smoky Mountains, Shennadoah, A bit
>around harpers ferry, a bit owned by the zoo). The rest of the land is owned by
>state and local goverm\=nments and a few sections are still on private land."

Sorry. The government of the United States of America, is by far the dominant
owner of the Appalachian Trail. It owns all of the Georgia Trail, most of North
Carolina and Tennessee, and much of Virginia through its ownership of the
National Parks and National Forests through which the trail passes.

 Much of the trail in Pennsylvania and New York passes through state lands,
 though the connecting links are also mostly owned by the federal government,
 either the park service or the forest service.  I don't know the details of
 southern New England. Greylock is state owned, along with other state
 preserves, but again the federal government has bought all the connecting
 trails.

  Most of the trail through Vermont and New Hampshire go through National
  Forests.

  The Mahoosucs are divided. The National Forest (or perhaps the National Park
  Service, I haven't checked) owns the corridor through the New Hampshire
  portion. The Maine section is owned by Maine as  a result of the land swaps
  that followed disclosures a few decades ago that Maine had somehow mislaid
  400,000 acres of public lands, preserved when the state's 7 million acre
  public domain was sold at auction, or given away nearly two centuries earlier.

   There are pockets of state lands through the four ponds area, Bigelow and
   Nahmakanta, in part as a result of the same land swaps, and Gov. Baxter, who
   gave us the 200,000 acres and 14 miles of trail leading to the summit of
   Katahdin. Most of the rest of the trail in Maine, around 35,000 acres is
   owned by the National Park Service.

   The last time I checked only 15 or 20 miles of the trail remains in private
   ownership.

   Weary