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  1. #21
    ME => GA 19AT3 rickb's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rafe View Post
    Right on cue, to prove Rain Main's point.
    I understand where you guys are coming from, but considering the ATC has a $6 million annual budget, and works in close concert with much a larger organizations including the AMC and NPS and many smaller clubs who have people working to improve the Trail every day, it does strike me as odd that such a study is needed.

    I would have thought the land managers sort of knew what they were doing and needed money for implementation, rather than for expert advise on how to do the work better.

    The ones I have met seemed more in need of help, hands and dollars, than direction with new ideas.

  2. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by rickb View Post
    I understand where you guys are coming from, but considering the ATC has a $6 million annual budget, and works in close concert with much a larger organizations including the AMC and NPS and many smaller clubs who have people working to improve the Trail every day, it does strike me as odd that such a study is needed.

    I would have thought the land managers sort of knew what they were doing and needed money for implementation, rather than for expert advise on how to do the work better.

    The ones I have met seemed more in need of help, hands and dollars, than direction with new ideas.
    If you read the article, it's more than just a "study." Think of it this way: with six million visitors per year to the AT, that's a nickel per visitor going to this project. IMO, there are few public projects more worthy of support and sustenance than the AT. And few places where the public gets such a huge bang for their tax dollar as the AT -- where the really hard work is mostly done by volunteers.

    $300,000 buys you one AGM-65D Maverick missile.

  3. #23
    Registered User ChinMusic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rafe View Post
    $300,000 buys you one AGM-65D Maverick missile.
    Or over 25,000 Hep B vaccines.

    See, I can play that game too.
    Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.

  4. #24
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChinMusic View Post
    Or over 25,000 Hep B vaccines.

    See, I can play that game too.
    I'll take Skyline's word that this is a good investment. He's earned his cred as a trail maintainer and someone who has the trail's interest at heart.

  5. #25
    Registered User ChinMusic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rafe View Post
    I'll take Skyline's word that this is a good investment. He's earned his cred as a trail maintainer and someone who has the trail's interest at heart.
    Give this guy or someone like Bob Peoples 300K and see what you get.
    Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.

  6. #26
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    One thing is true - Bob Peoples will work for less than an accredited scientist. ... for a while.



    Quote Originally Posted by ChinMusic View Post
    Give this guy or someone like Bob Peoples 300K and see what you get.
    Let me go

  7. #27

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    Now let me guess.
    They will determine that hikers cause erosion, and more hikers cause more erosion.
    Hence they will recommend limiting the number of people allowed to hike on the AT.

  8. #28
    Registered User ChinMusic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RockDoc View Post
    Now let me guess.
    They will determine that hikers cause erosion, and more hikers cause more erosion.
    Hence they will recommend limiting the number of people allowed to hike on the AT.
    The study will figure out that those steep northern sections are in granite. Cutting switchbacks in granite is tough.

    There, that was free too.
    Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.

  9. #29

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    Quote Originally Posted by Rain Man View Post

    He observed that the trail becomes steeper and rockier as he has hiked south to north, and the sustainability of its design has declined.
    I kind of like the way many sections of the trail in Maine go over ledges. A granite threadway is pretty sustainable.

  10. #30
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    Bob Peoples will do a great job. He will determine certain sections to be re-done in a more sustainable way. Those who oppose will question his scientific credibility. The project will stall or be reintroduced again with accredited scientists. ka ching ! :-)
    Let me go

  11. #31
    •Completed A.T. Section Hike GA to ME 1996 thru 2003 •Donating Member Skyline's Avatar
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    This is more than a simple study. Like many such grants, it should result in not only a reciting of problems/issues but also lay the groundwork for solid solutions. Like how best to implement, negotiate the maze of rules/regs etc.

    And Rafe, thanks for the kind words. My experience with PATC was more in the area of shelter area maintenance and improvement. In fact that gave me the opportunity to put some of Jeff's models into practice regarding tentsites. The only trail maintenance I've done was for special projects--not that I had a section to be responsible for. Due to health issues and relocation I have since retired, anyway.

    Agree! $300,000 would be a great investment in anything Bob Peoples is associated with.

  12. #32
    Registered User Old Hiker's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by RockDoc View Post
    Now let me guess.
    They will determine that hikers cause erosion, and more hikers cause more erosion.
    Hence they will recommend limiting the number of people allowed to hike on the AT.
    Ya beat me to it.

    First: shove them all into shelters like GSMNP. Control the damage.
    Next: start charging fees that increase every year because the fees don't pay for the people to take the fees. Daily? Per mile? Toll trailheads?
    Next: claim the clubs/organizations aren't doing a good enough job, so the gummint has to take over.
    Next: fees go up again. And again. Gotta have people to patrol for illegal hikers. People gotta be paid.
    Next: SEVERELY limit the number of people on the Trail - 25 per year? 125?

    How much in fees alone to climb Mt. Everest?

    Nope - I'm not too cynical.
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  13. #33

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    Well I'd be curious how the study shakes out. Every year we talk about limiting groups to X amount of people, sometimes splitting large groups into two, respectively every year thousand or more people start at roughly the same time to trek to Maine...just an observation.

  14. #34
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    Quote Originally Posted by Odd Man Out View Post
    It's nothing new. During one of his State of the Union addresses, Reagan used all these pointless research projects funded by the government as examples of government waste. He then read the title of one of these "pointless" grants. I was in grad school at the time and it happened to be a grant by one of the profs in our department, and he found out that he would become the "poster child" for government waste at the same time everyone else in the country did, watching it live on national TV. As it turns out, it was a perfectly legitimate and potentially beneficial plant pathology research project, but to anyone outside the field, the highly technical grant title would sound very obtuse.
    Wow, was that the one with the Belgian Endive? I remember that one being trotted out. And I remember saying to my then-grlfriend (now wife), "Gee, if I were growing Belgian endive, I'd hope that the agricultural extension service would be able to offer some advice on the subject!" But it makes better press to spear "waste" than figure out what's actually going on.
    I always know where I am. I'm right here.

  15. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by RockDoc View Post
    Now let me guess.
    They will determine that hikers cause erosion, and more hikers cause more erosion.
    Hence they will recommend limiting the number of people allowed to hike on the AT.
    Quote Originally Posted by Old Hiker View Post
    Ya beat me to it.

    First: shove them all into shelters like GSMNP. Control the damage.
    Next: start charging fees that increase every year because the fees don't pay for the people to take the fees. Daily? Per mile? Toll trailheads?
    Next: claim the clubs/organizations aren't doing a good enough job, so the gummint has to take over.
    Next: fees go up again. And again. Gotta have people to patrol for illegal hikers. People gotta be paid.
    Next: SEVERELY limit the number of people on the Trail - 25 per year? 125?

    How much in fees alone to climb Mt. Everest?

    Nope - I'm not too cynical.
    Aye, that's the way I see it goin as well.

  16. #36
    •Completed A.T. Section Hike GA to ME 1996 thru 2003 •Donating Member Skyline's Avatar
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    C'mon people. You cannot limit access to the AT. Not sure you could logistically enforce an admission or use fee over most of the AT.

    So--what are you going to do--fence it all in? Because that has worked so well thusfar on the Mexican border. :-( You anti-government folks must have better scenarios to contemplate.

    I see this and other studies or actual construction projects coming out with recommendations for how to better build/maintain tread, the wisest use of checkdams/waterbars/switchbacks, where NOT to locate tread, etc. when relos are done. And maybe identify places where relos should be done. That sort of thing. Like the model created and repeated many times with roots in the Annapolis Rocks project.

    Speaking of which, I just turned the page on the 2014 ATC calendar. Couldn't believe it. July's photo is of Annapolis Rocks! The viewpoint--not the nearby camping area. But in the caption there is a brief reference to that project: " . . . Volunteers for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and local clubs have reclaimed "loved to death" camping areas behind the overlook with pioneering recreational landscaping techniques."
    Last edited by Skyline; 07-01-2014 at 14:59.

  17. #37
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    Quote Originally Posted by Skyline View Post
    This is more than a simple study. Like many such grants, it should result in not only a reciting of problems/issues but also lay the groundwork for solid solutions. Like how best to implement, negotiate the maze of rules/regs etc.

    And Rafe, thanks for the kind words. My experience with PATC was more in the area of shelter area maintenance and improvement. In fact that gave me the opportunity to put some of Jeff's models into practice regarding tentsites. The only trail maintenance I've done was for special projects--not that I had a section to be responsible for. Due to health issues and relocation I have since retired, anyway.

    Agree! $300,000 would be a great investment in anything Bob Peoples is associated with.
    Jeff's work on modeling tentsites actually served the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (the steward of the Catskill and Adirondack Parks) well. They've eliminated the practice of tenting by the shelters - it's actually forbidden there now - and set up dispersed sites, marked with little 'CAMP HERE' disks, strung out nearby. The shelters, which used to sit in stinking mudholes, are recovering nicely. Note all the new green growing right up to the shelter in this picture. The beech saplings have grown in so well that the maintainers probably will have to put up a sign pointing the way to the privy! Note also how the heavily trodden area around the front of the shelter and the firepit has been reinforced with riprap, so that the camp chores are done on a durable surface. The sign on the side reads, "NO TENTS, TARPS, OR CAMPING AROUND LEAN-TO", but from the shelter, you can see the first of a series of yellow trail markers pointing the way to the tent sites.


    The Mink Hollow lean-to by ke9tv, on Flickr

    Campsite disc by ke9tv, on Flickr (Disclaimer: This picture was actually from a different spot on another trip, but all these blazes look pretty much the same.)

    The campsites themselves are pleasant and tend to stay that way. Each one has a pad of already-cleared soil that's the only obvious place to pitch a tent, with a yellow disk like the one above, reading "CAMP HERE". The sites are chosen to stay decently well drained. There are established fire rings in sight from the tent pads, but well away from them to discourage eating in your tent.

    Campsite by ke9tv, on Flickr

    With the brush and larger rocks already cleared, and the sites well separated, you don't get the problem where every hiker pitches in a slightly different place, and within a season the whole area is a lake of mud. If the tent pad gets too messed up, the maintainers can, with relatively little work, pile some brush in it, take a hoe to a new site, post a NO CAMPING disc at the old site and move the CAMP HERE disc to the new one. It's easy enough that it can be done every few years, and the old tent sites within another year or two have recovered a healthy understory

    These redesigned sites are very different from what DEC used to do, and they really do look nicer and more sustainable. And this is without restricting hiker access. Indeed, the redesigned sites accommodate more tents than the "tent cities" that used to surround the shelters. And this sort of management is a lot friendlier than the hiker restrictions that DEC had previously contemplated. Generally speaking, this specific improvement has been effective. Most of the people who used to tent around the shelter actually like moving away and getting a little more privacy. The sites are spaced fairly cleverly to make them reasonably isolated by sight and sound from their neighbours while still being within a reasonable distance.

    If my $0.001 share of taxes in Jeff's grant paid for figuring out how to make this kind of improvement, and make it in such a way that hikers cooperate naturally with it, I think it's money very well spent. This sort of thing is what keeps trails hikable.

    Incidentally, the same DEC management plan that resulted in the redesign of this specific site also recommended against sustainability upgrades on the Devil's Path in the Catskills, on the grounds that the unusual athletic challenge offered by its "straight up the fall line" layout and its widespread reputation for the challenge made it a unique asset, worth the (slight) environmental impact of the unstable portions of its treadway and equally worth an exception to ordinary accessibility guidelines. Once in a while, the agencies can be reasonable, if we let them.
    I always know where I am. I'm right here.

  18. #38
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    Quote Originally Posted by Old Hiker View Post
    How much in fees alone to climb Mt. Everest?
    That would have to figure in as one of the top 10 worst analogies, ever.

    The AT is already a government project. Actually, it's a cooperative between government and private overseers. If you don't believe climate change has an impact on the AT, you haven't walked the AT in Vermont since hurricane Irene in 2011. Extreme rainfall events have been increasing in the northeast -- just as drought has been increasing in CA and the southwest (affecting PCT hikers as well, but in a different way.)

  19. #39
    Registered User ChinMusic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rafe View Post
    That would have to figure in as one of the top 10 worst analogies, ever.
    Right up there with bringing a "Maverick Missile " into this discussion........
    Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.

  20. #40
    CDT - 2013, PCT - 2009, AT - 1300 miles done burger's Avatar
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    Maybe it's just because I'm an ecologist, but I think that the study mentioned in the article is badly needed. As most hikers know, the trail up north is increasingly steep and rocky. Where the trail is very steep, the poor construction and lack of drainage have caused the soil to erode away completely (that's why it's a granite ramp in a lot of places--there used to be soil there). As the soil washes away, hikers widen the trail by grabbing onto the vegetation and stepping on the roots and dirt at the edge of the trail. This makes the exposed rock area get wider and wider and leads to more vegetation damage, as hikers trample the plants at the edge of the trail and break off branches pulling themselves up or letting themselves down. It's a vicious cycle that does not get better.

    If someone can figure out a way to make a trail that doesn't cause soil to erode away and damage the vegetation, I'm all for it. I hope that the results of the study are put to good use.

    (Also, for all you complainers--you're too late. The researcher already has the money. Whining here will not change anything--try writing your Representative or Senator instead.)

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