BETHEL – Hikers who’ve enjoyed the beauty of the Appalachian Trail may give little thought to how their outhouse “contributions” are transferred from deep in the Maine woods to an appropriate disposal site. Nor might they consider the literal sweat that’s been shed to build a stone stairway up a steep slope.
Yet, in Maine alone, there are more than 550 volunteers who maintain this wilderness trail each year.
On Saturday, visitors to Bethel Outdoor Adventure were treated to demonstrations, talks and outdoor activities sponsored by the Maine Appalachian Trail Club. The event celebrated National Trails Day and also was designed to clarify the club’s mission for the public.
Recently, Trails Day event organizer Kathy Kahler had said that the general public doesn’t seem to distinguish between the Appalachian Trail Conference, the Maine Appalachian Trail Club and the Appalachian Mountain Club. Yet the three are different, albeit related organizations.
Don Stack, president of the MATC, talked about the issue last weekend while sitting beside the Androscoggin River on one of the year’s first summer-like days.
The Appalachian Trail Conference was founded by Benton MacKaye in the 1920s to pursue his dream of a wilderness hiking corridor along the East Coast. The trail was completed in 1937. In 1968, it became a national scenic trail under federal protection, a national park.
An unusual decision
In 1984, in an unprecedented act, the National Park Service delegated the trail’s maintenance to the Appalachian Trail Conference. It’s the only national park maintained solely by volunteer organizations.
The trail conference oversees and partially funds the MATC and Appalachian Mountain Club, two of 31 clubs from Maine to Georgia that maintain the 2,174-mile trail from Mount Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in Georgia.
The MATC uses these funds and others from grants, private and corporate donations to pay two seasonal trail crews and several ridge runners and campsite caretakers. Their current annual budget is $173,000, of which $41,000 is expected to come from the trail conference.
The MATC maintains most of the main footpath, side trails and surrounding conservation lands in Maine. This totals almost 300 miles and 30,000 acres. There are approximately 30 established campsites on the trail in Maine, about one every seven to 10 miles, each with a privy and most with lean-tos and tent platforms.
The Appalachian Mountain Club maintains sections of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecticut as well as other trails all along the Eastern Seaboard.
The main difference between the MATC and Appalachian Mountain Club, according to Stack, is that the mountain club provides more educational opportunities and leads trips. The MATC provides some education but its members’ efforts go mostly towards trail maintenance.
Getting a job done’
“A lot of people don’t know what MATC does,” said Stack. “Today’s event is an effort to get the word out.”
Stack has not hiked the entire Appalachian Trail, although he says he’d like to hike more of it in sections.
“I’ve seen a lot more of the trail by maintaining it than hiking it,” he said.
Why, then, does he do this backbreaking labor?
“I enjoy getting outdoors and getting a job done. It’s nice to feel like I’ve gotten something accomplished at the end of the day,” he said.
The Maine section of the trail has 103 sections; each section has a trail maintainer. The MATC is in need of several section maintainers and is always happy to accept the help of any willing and able volunteers, he said. Information on the club’s work can be found online at www.matc.org
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