So you want to buy a camp lot in the northern whites ;)

[peakbagger]

https://www.landvest.com/property/251873903/coos-county-nh/

@$520 an acre.

Someone already scooped up this "bargain" @ $193 an acre

https://www.landvest.com/soldproperty/263682703/coos-county-nh/

Both lots are some of the original Brown Company holdings in Success NH which at one time included the AT in the Mahoosucs. It was bought by an insurance company when the owners of the Berlin Mills were in terminal decline. An insurance company bought the land and made a lot of noise that they planning to hold it "forever" and manage it responsibly. They sold it in less than 10 years (long short of forever) after the ice storm of 1998 to the highest bidder that happened to be JR Dillon a notorious timber liquidator who lived up to his reputation. The description on the sold lot, The property has been managed as commercial timberland for many decades and is currently in a stage of rapid growth of younger pre-merchantable stands. This is realtors speak for the property was given a haircut and every tree that could be cut has been cut. I expect that's why the price is so low along with much of it is the North slopes of the Mahoosucs. Dillon sold the strip of land that contains the AT to the US several years ago for a bundle so this property now abuts the AT corridor. They also sold development and conservations easements in another transaction. I would not be surprised if the Success Hill lot has some fundamental issues on access to the timber.

This was part of the Brown Company's backyard which was one of the earliest "managed sustainable forests" back in the late 1800s. Reportedly the Yale school of Forestry were frequent visitors and the Brown company approach most likely factored into the early management of the national forest system as the National Forest system was staffed with mostly early graduates of the Yale school of forestry. Its unfortunate that Dillon wiped out 130 years of that work including a few old growth stands that reportedly the prior owners foresters had conveniently ignored.

The National Guard at one point was considering buying the land for a mobile artillery training ground after Dillon was done with it. Dillon knew how to greenmail so coming up with incompatible possible future was just on of the tools of greenmail. The conservation community knew the game and held their nose to make the deals. Some other smaller parcels have been recently protected by the town of Milan NH as town forest. At least it now has easements on it and eventually will grow back and hopefully will not be clear cut again. The downside is with no revenue on the land for possibly decades the reasons to maintain Success Pond Road are lessened. Dillon had already done a lot of damage by regrading the old road bed without adding new gravel so many culverts were ripped out and damaged. I expect at some point there will be a washout and it just will not get fixed like has happened on the east end of the road several times. There are different owners on the Maine side of the line so maybe there will still be some access.

 

[Hillwalker]

Some of the estates that I have hiked and backpacked on over the years in Western Scotland run around 25,000 to 35,000 acres. This would be a fun thing to own once I hit the Lottery. Hmmm I guess I won't be doing that since I don't play.

I was a volunteer on the four person ATC boundary crew several years ago that went in there when Dillon was cutting. We busily repainted the yellow AT boundary surveyors blazes to keep Dillon from cutting into the AT Corridor. We also re-cut the 8 foot wide boundary edge swaths that had grown up since the NPS had the boundaries surveyed after the acquisition from Dillon. . There is some wild country up there once you leave the AT trail bed and start working on the edges boundary strip.

Now, at 79 I miss doing that sort of stuff.

http://www.appalachiantrail.org/hom...-crew-to-recover-large-tract-of-land-in-maine

Here's me after falling through a hole in the forest floor somewhere on the Mahoosuc AT boundary.

 

[peakbagger]

Coos county changed their online access to deeds so I cant see them free anymore but there is recent deed from Dillon to Bayroot LLC which is the shell for the Yale retirement fund that owns a lot of the region so maybe Bayroot is just adding more holdings?.

For some reason MATC changed the rules on boundary line clearing, they don't want us volunteers doing any cutting to speak of. I would rather open it up once and keep it open so its obvious.

I have some holes like that on my boundary section on Moody and Hall mountain. Bothe the north line and south line have some "very interesting" terrain to navigate. I don't need to worry much about timber trespass much on most of my boundary although there are few spots.