This summer and fall I travelled to the Catskills, Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire and Acadia National Park in Maine to look at how other popular outdoors destinations are handling crowds. My colleagues also took some trips this summer.

We’re going to share with you over the next several magazines what we learned and how different management techniques are working. These are things that could come to the Adirondack Park, or are already in pilot stages. If you’re not a magazine subscriber and haven’t read this yet, click here to read an overview of our solutions journalism project. (And if you’re not a subscriber and would like to be, click here.)

Our former editor Brandon Loomis also kicked off our series with a look at backcountry camping permits at Grand Teton National Park. You can read his experience and reporting here.

If you read my introductory story above, you’ll meet Steve Smith, owner of the Mountain Wanderer bookshop in New Hampshire. Smith is also a guidebook author and has hiked extensively across the northeast including the Adirondacks. He had this to say about the increasing number of hikers:

“People are going to come. You can’t stop them from coming. And when we all complain about too many people on the trail, of course, we’re all part of the problem.”

I look forward to sharing more with you through our next magazine issues.

People watch the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain at Acadia National Park. Photo by Gwendolyn Craig

Editor’s note: This first appeared in Gwen’s weekly Adirondack Report newsletter. Click here to sign up.