By Chris Gailey
The Appalachian Trail was the brainchild of Benton MacKaye (rhymes with sky), a Massachusetts regional planner and forester for the U.S. Forest Service. His idea for a continuous wilderness trail was proposed in his article in the October 1921 edition of the Journal of the American Institute of Architects, entitled "An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning." The trail was to provide leisure, enjoyment, and the study of nature for people living in the urban areas of the eastern United States.
Two-thirds of the current U.S. population live within 550 miles of the trail. Most of America's existing trails in the early 1900s were in New England, cut by members of the Green Mountain Club, the Appalachian Mountain Club, the New York — New Jersey Trail Conference and other members of the New England Trail Conference. To make MacKaye's idea a reality many small trail clubs and volunteer groups formed throughout the Appalachian region to work on the trail in their local area. As work on the Appalachian Trail progressed in the 1920s and '30s, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) was established to coordinate and manage the workings of these small trail clubs, as well as state and federal agencies.
The trail was completed in August 1937 when the Civilian Conservation Corps connected the ridge between Spaulding and Sugarloaf Mountains in Maine. Since then the Appalachian Trail Conservancy has worked for protection of the trail along its corridor and the trail has often been rerouted to ensure its path through protected lands. In 1968 Congress passed the National Trails System Act making the Appalachian Trail a National Scenic Trail and essentially a linear national park. The act also authorized funds to protect the trail by surrounding the entire route with public lands.
The nonprofit Appalachian Trail Conservancy continues to partner with the National Park Service in managing the work of the many trail clubs and other trail maintenance groups and promoting the protection of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.
The AMC takes on MacKaye's vision
The Appalachian Mountain Club, the oldest recreation and conservation club in the United States, supported MacKaye's vision from the start. By the time MacKaye had proposed his continuous footpath through the wilderness, the AMC had cut many trails throughout the Northeast and had an extensive trails system in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The AMC was also in the beginning stages of building a chain of huts along an east to west route in the White Mountains (by 1921, Lakes of the Clouds, Madison and Carter were already in place). This chain of huts and a number of AMC-built trails would later serve as the route of the Appalachian Trail through the White Mountains. AMC chapter volunteers played a critical role in surveying and building the Appalachian Trail through New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts as well.
Currently, the AMC and its Berkshire, Connecticut and Delaware Valley Chapters are among the 35 trail clubs that maintain the trail under the direction of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) and the National Park Service. With its professional and volunteer trail crews the AMC maintains about 350 miles of the AT: part of Pennsylvania; all of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and from Glencliff, N.H., to Grafton Notch, Maine.
In the White Mountains the AMC has the incredible task of maintaining one of the most heavily used yet most fragile sections of the entire Appalachian Trail. Since more than 7.5 million visitors a year come to the White Mountains, a thru-hiker is likely to encounter more people in one day in the Whites than he or she might see in a week elsewhere along the trail. Thousands of hours of trail work by AMC members, volunteers, and employees have helped protect the fragile alpine ecosystem in this region.
—Chris Gailey, formerly an AMC staff member, thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2000.
