LIFE ON THE EDGE in VT

Another great piece entitled "Beyond the Blazes".  A great write up written by Ben Rose of the Green Mountain Club highlighting the often overlooked, but very important work of corridor monitors and boundary maintainers in VT to help preserve and protect the trail corridor of both the Long Trail and the Appalachian National Scenic Trail.  If you're looking for a unique off trail volunteer experience & to help bridge the gap between the trail community and the countless number of landowners that today share a common boundary with the LT and AT Corridors, contact Pete Antos Ketcham at pantosketcham@greenmountainclub.org or by phone at (802) 244-7037 Ext. 17.

http://www.vtsports.com/articles/beyond-blazes-behind-closed-doors-april-2009-issue

AMC-Delaware Valley Chapter

Check out the recent AMC Trails Blog post highlighting the dedicated AT Boundary Ambassadors from the Delaware Valley Chapter in PA.

http://amctrails.blogspot.com/2010/02/delaware-valley-chapter-trail-work-2009.html

Walk on the Wild Side - Part II by Sally of the Mahoosucs (AMC Mahoosuc Rover)

For a newest installment of EXTREME AT Boundaries - Mahoosuc Style, check out a great blog piece by Sally Manikan (AMCs Mahoosuc Rover) detailing AMC's amazing boundary reclamation efforts for 2009.  The mileage is starting to add up now and piece together: 8 miles total by ATC/AMC cooperative efforts 2005-2007 + 5.75 miles by AMC (so far this year) = 13.75 miles.  Only 14.25 miles left to go and the majority of the most demanding miles have alraedy been tackled.  But the work is NEVER done.  The challenge now is to find some local conservation minded volunteers interested in taking on a monitoring section to walk at least once/year and keep up on the maintenance before the successional spruce/fir regrowth swallows the boundary markings back up again.  If you're willing and able, sign up now to become a Mahoosuc Corridor Steward.  The LINE needs you!



http://amctrails.blogspot.com/2009/10/life-on-edge-reclaiming-5-miles-of-at.html




"Let me admit, right off the bat, that I love boundary work because every day starts and ends with a bushwhack. This summer, I’ve punched through pockets of spruce-fir, scaled 500 foot ledges, and walked cleanly through open hardwood forest. I have the scars on my hands, the holes in my shirts, and, embarrassingly, maybe still the spruce needles in my hair, to prove it."

AT Corridor Boundary Data Management Project

Project Justification:

In partnership with the National Park Service (NPS), the primary goal of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s Boundary Program is to serve as the guarantor to NPS and the federal tax payers to insure the long term protection of the $149 million investment in the 111,269 acres of NPS corridor lands acquired to provide a protective buffer for the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. An additional $9 million has been expended by NPS to contract professional land surveyors to monument, mark, and map over 1,373 miles of exterior corridor boundaries in 11 states from VA to ME.

Over the last 25+ years, the NPS Appalachian Trail Land Acquisition Field Office (ATLAFO) located in Martinsburg, WV contracted 22 separate land surveying firms to perform the exterior corridor boundary survey work required to delineate the federally owned A.T. Corridor lands. Well over 60% of this mapping is from the pre-AutoCAD era and therefore exist only as mylar originals which are stored at ATLAFO. At present, paper copies of the A.T. boundary survey maps are run off from the mylars and are used primarily by Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) Boundary field staff and trail club volunteers to do the necessary monitoring, maintenance, and encroachment mitigation work required to protect this vulnerable corridor. With the increase in adjacent landowners, the threat level of encroachment due to such a large length of boundary and the increasing age since these surveys were completed (over 50% being 15+ years old), the need to incorporate this survey information into the existing AT GIS system has become critical. By incorporating this more accurate survey data into the AT GIS system, NPS and ATC will be able to more accurately deal with encroachment situations, assess land development changes in the vicinity of the A.T. corridor, and share this information with cooperative land management partners and adjacent landowners. Utilizing a GIS-based platform will not only enable NPS and ATC to produce more user friendly boundary survey and land ownership maps, but also enhance the existing AT GIS database system to accommodate the complexity of effectively managing the corridor lands, the condition of the surveyed boundaries, and tracking of past, present, and future maintenance data.

At present, neither NPS nor ATC have a common database to effectively capture and organize the monitoring and maintenance work performed annually along the A.T. corridor boundaries. Incorporating the boundary line and monument locations into a geodatabase along with their existing conditions, maintenance data, and discovered encroachments will enable ATC to more effectively fulfill their role as “guarantor” to NPS that the corridor lands are being properly cared for and managed. Using GIS technology will also enable ATC Boundary staff to query what areas are most threatened by probable encroachment, what areas are in most need of maintenance and boundary line reclamation efforts to re-establish the survey lines, and where annual staff time and resources should be budgeted and allocated to ensure the longevity of the surveyed boundary lines and the corridor lands they protect. With more surveyed boundary than any other national park and an average corridor width of 1,000 ft or less, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail is one of the most vulnerable units of the national park system by encroachment via the thousands of Trail neighbors that share a common boundary with the National Park Service.

Which map would you prefer to have when setting out for a day of bushwhacking along the A.T. Corridor boundary? 

"AT Corridor Boundary Work" by Benton McKay Schwartz

I like to work on the Appalachian Trail corridor boundary and now I’ll tell you about it.

The work on the boundary includes painting blazes, cutting a clear line of sight between blazes, finding monuments and working with boundary neighbors. To mark the boundary, we repaint the faded yellow blazes and hang signs along the boundary line, following the lines determined by the surveyors. The yellow paint used is easy to see in the woods, but it gets everywhere on clothes. It is best to work on the boundary during spring or fall because it is easier to see the blazes when the leaves are off the trees. It’s best to work with a small group of up to six Trail Club Volunteers on the boundary at a time. We use saws and loppers to clear a line from one monument or blaze to the next when it gets thick. We cut a clear line every five to seven years.

The AT Corridor boundaries have been surveyed by many land surveyors. A monument is a physical marker set by a surveyor to mark the boundary line. There are several types of monuments found along the boundary lines such as standard monuments, rock tablets, iron pipes, concrete posts and sometimes even natural features like a rock or a very large, old tree. Sometimes a monument is missing or buried and can take awhile to find. To help us find in our search, we triangulate and surveyor’s measurements from reference points back to the boundary monument. Using your map & compass skills effectively and knowing the type of monument and its location can all be helpful tools to find the monuments and the faded blazes along the boundary line.

The compasses we use on the boundary are surveyor’s compasses. I sometimes use my compass to sight the boundary to find the survey monuments and the blazes. Out on the boundary, the survey map is labeled clockwise. We like to work clockwise since the compass settings go clockwise too. Then we don’t have to set the compasses backwards. We use the compasses often enough to know that they can mess up near radio towers, power lines and high voltage lines and some times even near rocks.

We use several types of maps. The maps we use on the boundary are mostly exterior corridor boundary survey (ECBS) maps. ECBS maps are drawn by the surveyor and have the compass settings on them for us to use. These maps show where the boundary is for the AT. They tell the monument numbers and the compass angle and direction of the line between the monuments. A segment map is useful for finding your way into and out of the woods and to the area of work for the day.

Violations are a big problem to the Trail and boundary of the AT Corridor. Violations of the boundary can be trees cut, tree stands erected and roads built inside the corridor. As volunteers, we strive to solve the problems along the boundary between Trail neighbors and the National Park Service. We use green spray paint to erase a violator’s illegal trail markings or we pull dead trees branches and brush across the ATV paths that trespass into the AT Corridor. The green spray paint we use blends in with the trees and mosses on the boundary. We work to get along with the Trail neighbors and the communities around the trail so they don’t become violators. (Golden Rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you)

Caring for the AT boundary is as much fun as work. The more work done on the boundary the better. Caring for the AT is fun too, but it’s fun to work off the well beaten path of the AT.

Written by Benton McKay Schwartz, age 12, with AMC-Delware Valley, the youngest Jr. Boundary Ranger on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail and an uber Corridor Steward. Watch out A.T. Violators because Harry Potter of the Boundary in on the watch!