National Park Proposal East of Baxter Heating up

[egilbe]

Lets face it. Maine is a backwater. Its off the beaten path. Its not on the way to anywhere. Its good for what we value and that is solitude and open expanses of forest. I dont want to see it turned into a billionaires playground like Acadia. I dont particularly like following the motorhomes with the chihuahuas, I dont particularly like Chihuahuas.

I do like to ski, hunt, fish, hike and snowmobile. I dont want to spend more money in user fees to do what i already enjoy as a resident of Maine. I dont want to fund, or support another person's Acadia. If a tourist wants to go to the Maine woods they can already do so without all the marketing and hype that surrounds Yellowstone.

 

[Snowflea]

Lets face it. Maine is a backwater. Its off the beaten path. Its not on the way to anywhere.

It's actually on the way to a few places on my bucket list: Cape Breton Island/Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, the Gaspe, and Newfoundland (sort of).

Just sayin'.

Carry on...

 

[Stan]

It's actually on the way to a few places on my bucket list: Cape Breton Island/Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, the Gaspe, and Newfoundland (sort of).

Just sayin'.

Carry on...

Those are definitely worth the time. Great hiking and paddling opportunities. While you're at it add Gaspe and New Brunswick. We did a memorable 3-week road trip encompassing all but did not spend much time in Nova Scotia.

 

[Brambor]

So, curiosity got me and I went. ;-)

I had a weekend for my self and figured I'd try to head to the land of the proposed National Monument, spend a night somewhere ... check it out.

First I contacted Lucas St.Clair. Asked him whether it would be possible to visit. Lucas gave me an email address of Susan and Mark - a couple currently managing the recreation opportunities within the designated land area proposed as Katahdin Woods and Waters. I emailed an inquiry to perhaps fat bike onto the land and do a loop of sorts and to camp somewhere overnight. Susan replied with a pdf of a map and a great information to digest. I checked out the map and to my surprise found out there are currently 2 huts already on the land. I inquired and received a permit to spend a night at one of the huts along with all the logistics. The trip was on.

I shot a text message to one of my buddies on Wednesday and got him hooked on Fat Bike Bikepacking trip. We also peeked interest of another mountain biker Dave.

We headed up Friday afternoon and spent a night at Shin Pond Village about 8 miles from the trailhead.

First impression: At least 5 inches of snow on the ground! We were told there is no snow ;-) oh well.

We practiced packing and attaching our bags to the bike. Saturday morning was gorgeous. We were greeted by Dave at the trailhead and within minutes all three of us headed onto the trail.

The trail had about 10 inches of snow on the ground, unbroken trail, breakable crust. Really not the best surface for riding a fat bike. We immediately regretted not bringing our skis. Backcountry skis would have been the perfect transportation for the weekend. It was tough going, but we made steady progress. The snow landscape was magical.

It was about 6 miles to the hut. At one of the trail forks we decided to take the more scenic route along the river.

The decision was soon somewhat regretted after we had to make 4 iffy water crossings. The bridge was out on the first crossing and there were no bridges at the other 3. We managed to make it without significantly soaking our socks. If you decide to ski, please make sure to avoid the river trail unless you have first hand beta on snow bridges.

After about 6 miles we arrived at the hut, perched atop a river bank, overlooking the East Branch of Penobscott River.

The hut was impeccable,

clean and well equipped outhouse,

wood shed full of kindling and firewood,

and in the hut were bunks for at least 8 people, wood stove, gas stove, 360 windows to make sure you don't miss the views. We made the fire, talked for a while and then went out for a 2 mile bike ride to the nearest campsite.

The campsite was near a river that appeared idylic for a fly fishing outing. I wonder how well it fishes?

We have also seen an actual sign for the International Appalachian Trail

The night was spent talking, the woodstove was running so hot we did not even need our sleeping bags.

Sunday morning we cleaned the hut, refilled firewood and headed back to our car. One thing I noticed is that no matter where you are within this park you always see a backdrop of mountains in the distance while the trails are nicely rolling hills.

Our trip back went faster as we followed our own singletrack. We did manage to get our feet wet a little bit at one of the crossings and this crossing was also a bit adventurous

First impression is that this place is excellent for cross country skiing, back country skiing, fat biking, mountain biking, hiking, snowshoeing, fly fishing, canoeing and kayaking. We have checked Fat Biking off our list. My next trip will be on Backcountry Skis.

 

[peakbagger]

Its back in the news with a new twist

http://bangordailynews.com/2016/02/...r-threat-lepage-orders-access-to-quimby-land/

 

[egilbe]

Interesting. It could be a public safety issue too, with access limited and knowing we have another spruce budworm epidemic looming, all that potentially dead standing timber is ripe for a forest fire.

 

[Brambor]

We went back to last weekend. This time we wanted to ski the trail to the farthest hut in their system. The hut name was Big Spring Brook Hut. It was approximately 11 easy ski touring miles from the parking lot. The snow was fantastic (compared to our Southern Maine conditions), the hut was clean and very accommodating. Great time at Katahdin Woods and Waters. Excellent springboard to hike Traveller mountain. Excellent spot for hut ski touring trip.

 

[peakbagger]

Brambor, thanks for the "boots on the ground" reports. A few questions.

Assuming you drove from Windham (an outer suburb of Portland for those not familiar) what was your drive time to the park gate? My speculation is probably an hour past Medway to the gate ?

Did the cabins you have visited look purpose built for the proposed park or are they older structures converted for use? I am curious if the new National Park would allow these to remain and how they would be managed?.

Did you have a chance to look at any logs to figure out the current usage?

Generally with a NP, the available lodging beyond historic structures is switched over to managed campgrounds run by a private concessionaire, generally the concessionaire has significant latitude if and when they run a lodging facility. Thus access to what you visited may or may not be available in a future NP. I speculate it would be chicken and egg situation. It may be that you have had experiences that may or may not be available to future park guests. The NPS generally has been shifting to one general national concessionaire and given the recent controversies over the copyright of National Park names by an entrenched private concessionaire this is big business. One of the big selling points to the park is it will come with an endowment, how this will align with the NPS budgeting will be interesting.

The observation of this most remote hut having good access to the Traveler's brings up a major point on the potential success of the park out of Elliotsville Plantation's control. Will BSP allow the construction of new trails into BSP? In the past the park authority has closed off access via the Nesowadnehunk Gate and responded to the IAT's proposed route out of the park by shutting down the Northern Peaks trail for many years to block the proposed routing. There are pros and cons to allowing these trails. The big one is loss of control which the park really takes seriously. Barring the installation of a gatehouse at the boundary (highly unlikely), opening up new access to the park allows more people in that are not under the control of BSP. There could be some sort of permit system but that still requires BSP staff to administer it. The pros are the facilities on the north end of BSP are underutilized, incorporating the north end of the park into the adjacent NP would increase the potential for multiday loops. The BSP facilities at South Branch Pond, Russell Pond and Trout Brook are all staffed already so added guests using existing facilities is a revenue gain to BSP. Looking at the maps, South Branch is probably the campground that gets the best increase in use. I expect that the BSP commission would have a lot of discussions on this and generally in the past they tend to reject outside attempts at setting policy. Even if the park authority did allow access I would expect that like times in the past, external groups would challenge the decision in court as opening up new recreational access could contravene Percival's Baxters historical wishes for the park. As his writing generally was directed toward giving Maine residents priority access to the limited faculties of the park, I expect that such a court challenge could possibly prevent these new trails.

Thanks again for your posts. Things are definitely heating up and I expect the monument declaration is going to be political bargaining tool until the next president takes office.

 

[Brambor]

Hi Peakbagger,

Driving:
I would say it's about 5 hours driving from Portland, Maine. The entrance is very close to the North Gate of Baxter State Park.

Cabins:
I don't have any real facts but I did hear that this land before it was purchased by Roxanne Quimby was owned by the Paper Company and the paper company leased spots on the land for local people who then built small cabins on the land. How many or whether they were built by the paper company and then leased to the people - I do not know. But after the lease was up and after the land was sold to private hands (Roxanne) the folks who had the cabins were no longer allowed to use them. That probably did not make some people happy. But, I have to reiterate again ... I do not really know the facts. Just heresay.

Having said that I think that it is possible these cabins were built on the previous location of the leased lands/cabins. They do appear to be more purpose built or at least drastically redecorated as they have basic bunks like the cabins at BSP, nice new woodstoves and the wood, overall appears to be newer.

I did read the logs. It appears the cabins get used fairly frequently.

I would say that access to Traveller is from the closer hut (Haskell Hut) and not from the hut I stayed at (Big Spring Brook). When we skied in I noticed a snowshoe trail cut over to the right towards Traveller and later on we ran into a group of 4 skiers with snowshoes on their backpacks who were staying at Haskell hut and said they were going to Traveller. I found it somewhat peculiar as it was 11 AM, a bit late for my style of hiking but nevertheless it made me pour over the maps once I had the time at the hut to check what would it take to hike Traveller and found a trail going up there.

About the politics of trail access and coexistence with BSP - I'm not really into the politics of the situation as long as there is SOME way for folks like me to get to enjoy these natural resources of Maine. Having another park be it BSP, NP or SP is good for my ideology of wanting to protect these placess and thus prevent access issues that stem from private ownership and more importantly from private ownership in areas that become popular. I'm not into the logging side of things and I'm ok with motorized use WITHIN REASONABLE MEANS that keep nature in harmony.

 

[peakbagger]

Thanks.

The standard lease agreements I have seen and heard about specify that the leasee has to remove any material improvement to the leased land at the end of the lease. Many of the old GNP leases were in place for decades and the leaseholder paid taxes so the leasees regarded these camps as their own. In some cases, if the leasee wasn't in agreement with the end of the lease, they will abandon the property or torch the place out of spite. There was pretty high profile land purchase in the Stratford NH area about 15 years ago where the new owner extinguished several leases and the former leasees torched the majority of the camps to keep the new landowner from reusing them. The new owner generally gets what is left to do what they will, some owners bulldoze the camps to keep squatters out. Frequently extinguishing the lease is a required part of a land sale. In that case the lessors will pay long term leasees for the improvements just to get them out but generally if its an involuntary end of a lease its not a friendly event which is why the purchaser doesnt want to get involved. Given the acrimony of Roxanne Quimbys initial purchases and the controversial access closures early on I expect the prior leaseholders were driven out by lack of access but I also don't have the facts. In that area of Maine a pulled culvert or locked gate can make a camp inaccessible to many as most private logging roads ban OHRVs except on occasion snowmobiles.

I have looked on USGS maps and seem to remember some old logging roads running in the direction of the travelers from the east. I expect unorganized bushwhacks from out of the park would be ignored initially but if an actual trail was proposed like the IAT Wassataquoik tote road routing that would have gone through the EP property, I expect that BSP would respond.

 

[Brambor]

Based on what I know about how the land is accessed I believe the only restriction was motorized access. The access is pretty easy. There are logging roads but, for example, when I was there in winter, snowmobiles are not allowed on the roads and rightfully so because the entire road is groomed xc skiing and skate skiing/snowshoeing. A snowmobile would make a mess out of the access path. In the summer I think it will be similar - bicycles, hiking but no motorcycles or atv's.

 

[egilbe]

Based on what I know about how the land is accessed I believe the only restriction was motorized access. The access is pretty easy. There are logging roads but, for example, when I was there in winter, snowmobiles are not allowed on the roads and rightfully so because the entire road is groomed xc skiing and skate skiing/snowshoeing. A snowmobile would make a mess out of the access path. In the summer I think it will be similar - bicycles, hiking but no motorcycles or atv's.

Snowmobiles aren't grooming the ski trails?

 

[Vermonster]

I had also heard that required liability insurance policies for leaseholders were expensive and caused some to abandon their leases. This is third hand info so may or may not be true.

 

[Brambor]

Of course they are. Service vehicles will get in there - that should be logical.

Snowmobiles aren't grooming the ski trails?

 

[peakbagger]

This will potentially add fuel to the MWNP fire.

https://bangordailynews.com/2016/03...ent-logging-on-parcel-near-baxter-state-park/

There have been numerous editorials in various Maine papers of late from mostly coastal or southern maine individuals trying to influence the MWNP project. There are indications that the Department of Interior is actively campaigning to acquire the parcel as a National Monument. The recent closure of Madison Paper although not near the proposed MWNP and the acquisition of the former GNP and Expera Old Town mills by demolition firms is also adding to the debate.

 

[peakbagger]

Another rebranding long ago it was Elliottsville Plantation, then Katahdin Woods and Waters and now this

http://bangordailynews.com/2016/03/...h-woods-national-monument/?ref=relatedSidebar

Elliotsville Plantation didn't make a lot of sense as the actual proposed MWNP was no where near Elliotsville Township which is actually closer to Monson Maine.

 

[Brambor]

it's good to see they are adjusting along the way. I hope they end up reserving those woods away from private interests.

 

[egilbe]

Private interests was stewards of those forests for over 200 years. I don't feel the private interests did a bad job in allowing everyone to use that land for recreation...until Roxanne purchased it.

 

[Brambor]

Private interests was stewards of those forests for over 200 years. I don't feel the private interests did a bad job in allowing everyone to use that land for recreation...until Roxanne purchased it.

Plum Creek took away that shoreline from us, and private interests plundered lumber over and over until we had virtualy no mature forest left in Maine. Roxanne might have purchased it but a NPS will protect it forever.

 

[egilbe]

As much as I love trees, I'm ok with forests being used, rather than "protected". Wild fires do more damage to a forest than selectively cutting areas of valuable timber. The wonderful thing about forests is that they renew themselves. Young forests are a haven for all manner of wildlife, browse for moose and deer, shelter for birds. Old growth forests are sterile, except for the old trees.