Adopt-A-Peak monitoring is part of AMC’s Mountain Watch program where volunteers agree to visit a peak or trail section periodically during the growing season. Volunteers track long-term trends in plant flowering and visibility conditions on the mountain they adopt. Hikers are a great resources for reporting from remote areas and more frequently than could be done otherwise. Adopt-A-Peak focuses our monitoring efforts on a specific location year after year. Volunteers are needed for forest and alpine flower monitoring from late May through August but this effort intensifies in June, which is Flower Watch Month. Visibility is monitored on every visit by taking a photograph. Volunteers are encourage to monitor both plants and visibility.
Where can Adopt-A-Peak be done?
Monitoring may take place in any of the northeastern U.S. alpine areas — including Katahdin in Maine, the Presidential and Franconia ranges in New Hampshire, the Green Mountains in Vermont, and the Adirondacks in New York — where one or more of the six targeted alpine plants are found. For a detailed list of alpine peaks go here. Observations of lower-elevation forest flowers can also be done in mountain ranges in the eastern U.S. from 2,000 feet and higher in elevation. Photos to document the visibility on each visit should be taken at one selected vista point, on a mountain peak or along a trail, known to have the most distant view.
How do you get involved?
You can download the alpine or forest flower species field guide and data sheets and the visibility instructions from the web, or request a monitoring kit by mail by e-mailing AMCmtnwatch@outdoors.org (include "Adopt-A-Peak" in the subject line and information on the mountain/region you would like to adopt). Completed data sheets are returned to an AMC destination and then entered into the long-term database for analysis with local climate records. In the summer of 2007, the AMC will launch a web-based data entry form where hikers can enter their observations online.
