| | Dear Friends,
Welcome to the October 2007 edition of the Appalachian Mountain Club's Maine Woods Initiative News, an electronic newsletter designed to keep you up to date on the Appalachian Mountain Club's Maine Woods Initiative, a plan for land conservation that incorporates outdoor recreation, natural resource protection, nature-based tourism, sustainable forestry, and community partnerships in Maine's 100-Mile Wilderness region. It seems as though it took awhile, but the crisp fall air is now upon us, and excitement is building for a snowy winter ahead. Our professional and volunteer trail crews were busy over the summer, cutting a new hiking and cross-country skiing trail from AMC’s Little Lyford Pond Camps to the Leon and Lisa Gorman Camps at Chairback Mountain, which groups will be able to preview early next year. Word from the crews is that the trail is spectacular.
A wonderful series of articles and newscasts about our project appeared in the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram and on WMTW-TV8, the Portland ABC affiliate. The reporters, Tux Turkel and Steve Minich, did a terrific job of capturing the excitement and challenges of our adventure here in Maine.
I hope you’ll come visit us soon. Winter awaits.
Walter Graff
AMC Deputy Director
Community Partnerships
Fifteen 6th-graders from the Brownville School in Brownville, Maine, spent two productive and enjoyable days in September at AMC’s Little Lyford Pond Camps, where they participated in AMC’s A Mountain Classroom program and studied animal adaptations, watersheds, and local trees and plants. Students were very excited about the experience, and were preparing a slideshow of their trip to show at their weekly school assembly.
AMC’s recent involvement in the “Trail to Every Classroom” (TTEC) program, sponsored by the Applachian Trail Conservancy and the National Park Service, has inspired a local partnership in our MWI project area. AMC Camps and Programs Manager Shannon LeRoy attended two program sessions in West Virginia earlier this year along with local educators. This group will complete the program during a session at Medawisla Wilderness Camps on October 26-27. TTEC is a professional development program for educators, and helps teachers develop their own curriculum that increases student literacy skills and fosters student understanding of and appreciation for the public lands and resources connected by the Appalachian Trail. The program led to a collaboration between Natural Resource Education Center (NREC), Charlotte White Center’s Life Jacket Program, and AMC to develop a Quest Fest to run in conjunction with the Moosehead Region’s annual Moosemania Festival in spring. Stay tuned for more information.
Outdoor Recreation
This past summer was a particularly popular one for AMC’s Family Adventure Camps at Little Lyford Pond Camps and Medawisla Wilderness Camps. The camps are great destinations for families throughout the year. Did you know you can drive directly to Medawisla in the winter and once there enjoy many miles of cross-country ski trails? Did you know Medawisla offers both meals on the American Plan or as self service?
This summer was a first for developing birding adventures at Little Lyford Pond Camps and Medawisla Wilderness Camps. Working with Bob Deschaines, one of Maine's foremost birding experts, guests were able to identify upwards of 70 species within a short walk of each camp. We are hopeful that interest in this type of recreational experience will grow in coming years.
The trail crew also put the finishing touches on the paddle-to campsite located on the northerly shore of Long Pond and also placed two outhouses at campsites on Long Pond, located two future shelter sites, designed a new canoe access campsite on Long Pond and designed a three-quarter-mile extension for the Trout Brook Trail.
Color-coded arrows have been put up at key road intersections to help guests navigate the Katahdin Iron Works road system and have an easier time finding our camps and cabins. Following the blue arrows will take you right to Little Lyford Pond Camps.
Conservation
AMC continues to monitor public review of Plum Creek Timber Company’s development proposal for the Moosehead Lake area. Plum Creek recently modified its concept plan in response to feedback from federal and state agencies, and public hearings, originally planned for November, will be rescheduled. AMC filed as an intervenor in the Land Use Regulation Commission (LURC) review process, and submitted testimony with concrete suggestions for improving the plan so that it will better conform to LURC’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan (CLUP), as well as the statutory criteria for LURC’s review of rezoning petitions. AMC believes the third revision of the Concept Plan is an improvement over past versions, and commends the landscape-level conservation opportunity presented in the Conservation Framework agreement, but believes further improvement is still needed in order for the proposal to meet LURC’s criteria for concept plan approval. You can read more at LURC’s web site, where you can also download AMC’s testimony on the plan. AMC Maine Policy Manager Bryan Wentzell will be presenting a session on the concept plan and review process on October 30 at 7 p.m. at the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick. For more information, contact Bryan at bwentzell@outdoors.org.
People
Meet Medawisla managers John Mesich and Amy Oullette >>
Sustainable Forestry
2007 marks AMC's fourth year of harvesting timber on the Katahdin Iron Works property. Harvesting activity was again located south of the Appalachian Trail corridor and continued to focus on removing low-grade hardwoods. The majority was classed as pulpwood, while a small percentage found its way to mills manufacturing hardwood pallets. Beech trees that had been attacked by Beech Bark Disease were the major component of our pulpwood sales. Our timber management plan calls for removing diseased beech from our hardwood and mixed wood stands and encouraging growth of other species, such as white and yellow birch and sugar maple. As an experiment this year, tops and branches from our harvest were collected and provided to biomass boilers in East Millinocket and Old Town. We will be inspecting the areas harvested this year and determine whether we will continue to produce biomass in coming years.
MWI in the News
The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram and ABC affiliate WMTW-TV8 teamed up to produce a series of stories on outdoor recreation in Maine's 100-Mile Wilderness region, with a particular focus on the AMC’s efforts to promote and support the Maine Woods through its Maine Woods Initiative. The adventures and experiences of Press Herald Staff Writer Tux Turkel and Staff Photographer Derek Davis and WMTW Reporter Steve Minich are chronicled in a series of reports published and broadcast from July 22 through July 25, 2007. Click here to read, see, and hear these exciting reports.
Under the heading, “A Legacy of Environmental Conservation,” the Fall 2007 edition of the L.L.Bean catalog features the famed outdoor outfitter’s support for the AMC’s Maine Woods Initiative and announces the naming of the Leon and Lisa Gorman Camps at Chairback Mountain.
The September 2007 edition of Yankee magazine described the wilderness experience and fly-fishing for wild brook trout at Little Lyford Pond Camps in a feature article titled “Into the Wild” by Katrina Yeager.
The September 2007 edition of Down East magazine reports on the new mountain bike route between Medawisla Wilderness Camps and Little Lyford Pond Camps in a piece titled "Pedal Power."
In September, the DivineCaroline.com website featured the Gulf Hagas Rim Trail in an article titled “Grand Canyons of the Northeast,” by Sarah Pascarella.
View ongoing press coverage of the Maine Woods Initiative and AMC's Maine sporting camps.
View back issues of MWI News.
Media Contact: AMC Public Affairs Director Rob Burbank at rburbank@outdoors.org or (603) 466-2721, ext. 195. Contact Rob if you have ideas for articles to be included in future issues of MWI News.
Photos: Kim Walker, AMC Files, Lori Duff, Shannon LeRoy |  |
