12,000 Ossippee acres closed

[McRat]

Levity

Paradox, can I make a suggestion?

Best to be on the safe side.

 

[SteveHiker]

Just like the registered letter that TB sent to some landowners asking if their trails were open to the public, and after they didn't answer he put them on the map. Obviously they were not required to answer, but for 43 cents and enough ink to write NO they could have saved themselves and others a lot of anguish.

True, but for even less money and ink, TB could have saved a lot of anguish too.

 

[stopher]

...Stopher's anonymous group...

If you are referring to the group willing to do mitigation work, I suggest that you go back and review post numbers 96 and 121 in this thread. So there's you, me, bandana4me, and a number of people who chose to PM me, and it's up to them to relieve themselves of their anonymity. If the landowners had accepted the offer, I would have posted a general invitation. And I certainly would have notified you, Roy. As it happened, the general reaction was appreciation of the offer but they declined to accept our services.

 

[The Hikers]

When the land surrounding our family home on Ossipee Lake was deeded to the Nature Conservancy, no one came to us and asked if they could include our private road on the map, nor did they ask for permission to access trails
which began where our land ended. But we were thrilled to be surrounded by conservation land, and the sight of hikers enjoying the land I loved, certainly was better than the thought of multiple cottages springing up.
I understand there is a natural jealous feeling toward the places we love,but I wouldn't think of denying others the same pleasures I receive from those spaces.
If you have never wandered through the Ossipee Pine Barrens, I would recommend this different and interesting area. And YES there is a map.

 

[RoySwkr]

If a professional cartographer (MapAdventures, Delorme, the AMC) had decided on this project (a possibility that has been raised), what might they have done differently with regard to private landowners, old trails and consent issues?

I don't believe any of the above ask for consent to including private property on maps. The research involved sorting out all property owners and their claims would make a map of any large area impossible. To be more specific:

I don't know anything about Map Adventures, except that sometimes they show trail junctions in the wrong place so maybe they don't do fieldwork at all - a good way to avoid trespass issues?

The DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer shows public and private roads (and often passable and impassable roads!) in the same linestyle. They do not acquire advanced permission from landowners, and I don't know whether they remove items on request but probably.

The AMC shows both public and private roads and trails, sometimes in the same and sometimes different linestyles. They do not acquire advanced permission from landowners, but in at least one case they have removed something on request. Some trails shown on their maps were not GPS-ed and may not even exist. However their maps omit many unofficial roads and trails even in the National Forest where you are allowed to use them.

TB sometimes uses the same linestyle for official trails on LRCT property, trails on the easement property, and trails on other private property where no explicit permission had been given for trail use. He removed one trail prior to publication at landowner request. By the consent agreement, he cannot correct the map without explicit approval from everyone whose land is shown on it so it's essentially impossible, hence the best form of relief available to landowners is unavailable and people will continue to use the old maps until someone not affected by the agreement publishes a better one.

But let's keep the onus where it belongs. The mapmaker crossed the line, and has admitted publicly that he did so substantially. There are ways and there are not ways.

Surely there was some unconscionable stuff done in the Ossipees. TB has chosen to take the heat both for things he did and didn't do to help resolve the situation, so as somebody else said probably nobody knows all the facts of the situation. Several people here do know that the one specific trail that the Concord Monitor article indirectly accuses TB of reopening was actually reopened years earlier by someone entirely different, who distributed paper maps but didn't post them on the Internet. Because the statute of limitations has expired on his activities, he did this thinking it would benefit the public, and he is reportedly in poor health and probably doesn't need any grief, I won't name him here and hope that others won't either.

 

[skiguy]

TB has chosen to take the heat both for things he did and didn't do to help resolve the situation, so as somebody else said probably nobody knows all the facts of the situation.

In here lies the conundrum. Is there anyone here whom can clarify whether the things trailbandit has admitted to he actually committed or not.

 

[--M.]

In here lies the conundrum. Is there anyone here whom can clarify whether the things trailbandit has admitted to he actually committed or not.

Don't take this the wrong way , but this question is no longer relevant to the communities involved.

It is certainly time to move forward....

 

[Waumbek]

It is not at all useful for TB to "take the heat" for things he did not do. If there was actually someone else out there spraying herbicide and acting as a self-appointed trail cutter, then that person needs to be identified. I choose to take TB at his word. And I agree with --M, time to move on. Tomorrow is 2010.

 

[Amicus]

... time to move on.

So you say, but you couldn't resist one last sprayful. I haven't seen what Trail Bandit signed, nor would I presume to cross-examine him. But taking at face value (quite a leap) the Concord Monitor article which was posted here, he admitted to marking trails - very different from "cutting" (especially when those trails are purportedly subject to a hiking easement) and to applying herbicide. The last is one of those hot-button words useful for controversialists. I have seen no sign of herbicide use in my many miles of Ossipee hiking, the majority over the last two years. If he ever used any there (which I don't know), it can't have been recently or extensively. I do know (and not from TB) that some responsible trail-maintainers feel there is a legit. role for certain herbicides that you paint on the stumps of saplings you clear, lest they grow back two-fold in a year. You "apply" those with a brush, not a sprayer.

 

[Waumbek]

So you say, but you couldn't resist one last sprayful. I haven't seen what Trail Bandit signed, nor would I presume to cross-examine him. But taking at face value (quite a leap) the Concord Monitor article which was posted here, he admitted to marking trails - very different from "cutting" (especially when those trails are purportedly subject to a hiking easement) and to applying herbicide. The last is one of those hot-button words useful for controversialists. I have seen no sign of herbicide use in my many miles of Ossipee hiking, the majority over the last two years. If he ever used any there (which I don't know), it can't have been recently or extensively. I do know (and not from TB) that some responsible trail-maintainers feel there is a legit. role for certain herbicides that you paint on the stumps of saplings you clear, lest they grow back two-fold in a year. You "apply" those with a brush, not a sprayer.

I have responded to you PM, which is moving on.

 

[Grayjay]

In the process of moving on, I reflect-- What is the point of using herbicides in the Ossipees? You would end up with irritating dead branches. According to the TB, in the Virgin Islands, herbicides are even handed out to supervised trail volunteers, and are an integral part of trail work. Not here.
On the Bananna Trail ridge, TB cut brush and repainted old blue markers on the rocks, and on trees at the beginning, where the trail is unclear. That is likely the most impact he has had in the Ossipees.
In the Virgin Islands, a good percentage of the money from his map is allocated for trail work in the park. This map was altered by the park service to not include the old roads (trails) that he personally recut, roads that once led to dwellings where people lived before being evicted by the park service.
The Ossipee map could also be altered, accomodating landowners, and the proceeds used for trail work there. That would definitely be a few years down the road, wouldn't it.

 

[RickB.]

We seem to have arrived at the last word phase of this thread. So here is mine, though it won't be the last:

Trail Bandit created a beautiful, useful map of the Ossipees with the well-meaning intent of making them more accessible to all of us. In the process, he made some bad judgments concerning property owners feelings and, at least based on the outcome, rights. He also may or may not have done some ill-advised, unauthorized trail clearing. He has paid dearly for this and, while he is not fully contrite, has taken actions to reduce the negative impacts to us. And we have paid dearly, as well, with the temporary closure of the CFL lands, the ongoing closure of others and the apparent heightened distrust of our community by area landowners, in general. Not everything in all this has been fair but then, neither is life.

The lesson should be clear to us.

Oh, and somewhere along the way we lost Rocket21 whose active participation with constructive posts I miss (yes, I know of his new site).

 

[RoySwkr]

On the Bananna Trail ridge, TB cut brush and repainted old blue markers on the rocks, and on trees at the beginning, where the trail is unclear. That is likely the most impact he has had in the Ossipees.

As per my previous note, it was somebody else that cleared, marked, and mapped that ridge before TB got involved. (Another guy I've heard of but never met.)