FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 9, 2009

The 29,500-acre Roach Ponds tract purchased by the Appalachian Mountain Club is bounded on the north by the state’s Nahmakanta unit and on the south by the Appalachian Trail corridor, AMC’s Katahdin Iron Works property and the state’s Beaver Cove unit. AMC’s purchase of the Roach Ponds tract creates a permanent contiguous corridor of about 650,000 acres of critical conservation lands through the 100-Mile Wilderness region to Baxter State Park¹.
It hosts significant water and timber resources and provides habitat for a wide variety of wildlife and plant species. AMC’s purchase is part of a broader Conservation Framework created by Plum Creek, The Nature Conservancy, the Forest Society of Maine, and AMC which will increase the contiguous conserved area to nearly 800,000 acres.

There are two sporting camps within the Roach Ponds tract property – AMC’s Medawisla Wilderness Lodge and Cabins and the privately owned West Branch Pond Camps. In addition to these in-holdings, there are several other small private in-holdings on ponds on the property, but no leased lots.

Most of the property has been heavily harvested in recent years, and restoring the property to a more natural mature forest will take a long time. (Think of the White Mountains in the early 1900s). However, the property does contain numerous significant features:

• Nine Great Ponds, seven of which (Second Roach, Third Roach, Fourth Roach, Trout, Beaver and First West Branch Ponds and Long Bog) are located entirely within the property. About 90% of Second West Branch Pond and 60% of Penobscot Pond are located within the property.
  
  
• Two of these ponds (Fourth Roach and Beaver) are designated Remote Ponds. Fourth Roach is the third largest remote pond in the state.
  
  
• The upper reaches and headwater ponds of two significant rivers – the West Branch of the Pleasant River and the Roach River.
  
  
• The West Branch of the Pleasant River was one of the most highly-rated rivers in the state in the 1982 Maine Rivers study and is one of only 18 river segments in the state warranting special protection under the Maine Rivers Act of 1983. It is a significant native brook trout fishery. The Roach Ponds tract includes the upper 2.5 miles of the river. It flows south through the state’s Beaver Cove lot, AMC’s Katahdin Iron Works property, and the Appalachian Trail corridor at Gulf Hagas. In combination, these properties protect the upper 14 miles of the river.
  
  
• Extensive wetlands around the upper Roach Ponds and the West Branch of the Pleasant River.
  
  
• The steep northern slopes of the Whitecap Mountain range (traversed by the Appalachian Trail), extending up to an elevation of about 3350’. Whitecap is the heart of the 100-Mile Wilderness and is the highest peak between Bigelow and Katahdin. These high-elevation areas provide potential habitat for Bicknell’s thrush, the Northeast’s rarest migratory songbird.
  
  
• Several smaller peaks in the central part of the property (Shaw, Hedgehog and Black Pinnacle), which are visually prominent features from the surrounding ponds.
  
  
• One known rare plant record – pygmy water-lily (Nymphaea liebergii), a floating aquatic plant recorded at the west end of Penobscot Pond. This species is rated S1 (critically imperiled); Penobscot Pond is one of seven sites in the state and the only one with an A-rank for the quality of the population and site¹.
  
  
• The entire property lies within the critical habitat for the federally-threatened Canada lynx designated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
  
  

¹The Nature Conservancy. Rapid Assessment of Conservancy Priorities within the Plum Creek Resource Plan, Moosehead Lake Region. January 2006.