Wild Woods of the East

by Alexander Colhoun

If career and obligation normally limit your outdoor walks to the concrete canyons of northeastern urban centers, the Long Trail in nearby Vermont may be right up your alley. Each year the Vermont Chapter of the Sierra Club offers a variety of trips, including dayhikes and multiple-day trips. For more information contact George Webb at (802) 862-3249.

You could fill several shelves with all the books on backcountry Vermont, and nearly a library on the wild places of New England. A good place to start is with The Sierra Club Guide to the Natural Areas of New England by John Perry and Jane Greverus Perry (Sierra Club Books, 1990). Backpackers and dayhikers will appreciate the newly revised, pocket-size Long Trail Guide published by The Green Mountain Club, R.R. 1, Box 650, Route 100, Waterbury Center, VT 05677; (802) 244-7037. The GMC also publishes the Day Hiker's Guide to Vermont (1993) and a trail history, Green Mountain Adventure, Vermont's Long Trail (1989). Another valuable resource is the Appalachian Trail Guide to New Hampshire--Vermont (1995), published by The Appalachian Trail Conference, P.O. Box 807, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425; (304) 535-6331. (In Vermont, 146 miles of the AT coincide with the southern portion of the Long Trail.)

Threats to Vermont's forests affect the whole region; with the introduction of the Northern Forest Stewardship Act (S.1163) in 1995, 26 million acres of New England's northern forest, including 2 million acres in Vermont, have a chance of getting the comprehensive protection they deserve. For more information, contact the Sierra Club's Northeast Field Office, 85 Washington St., Saratoga Springs, NY 12866; (518) 587-9166, or the Vermont Natural Resources Council, 9 Bailey Ave., Montpelier, VT 05602; (802) 223-2328.

For 85 years, members of the Green Mountain Club have carried on James P. Taylor's vision of an unsullied Vermont walking experience, maintaining the Long Trail and introducing more than 200,000 yearly visitors to the region's pleasures.

A decade ago, the organization saw its efforts slipping away. Spurred by the development boom of the 1980s, logging companies began selling off woodland along the route in northern Vermont. One landowner demanded that the Long Trail be rerouted after his company constructed a radio tower near Camel's Hump; another built a house in the middle of the trail.

For generations the Green Mountain Club had negotiated informal agreements with landowners to allow the trail to run through their properties. Suddenly, business-with-a-handshake was no longer good enough, and the club launched a successful campaign to gain stronger safeguards. Since 1986, the organization has protected 50 miles of the Long Trail and its side routes, and more than 14,000 acres of backcountry. Some 90 percent of the trail is now protected by easements or outright ownership by the state, the federal government, and the Green Mountain Club.

(C) 2000 Sierra Club. Reproduction of this article is not permitted without permission. Contact sierra.magazine@sierraclub.org for more information.