Local outfitter The Mountaineer recently partnered with Patagonia to support educational and research efforts this summer atop the highest peaks through a grant to the Adirondack High Peaks Summit Stewardship Program.
According to an announcement sent to the press, the grant will enable the program to educate hikers about the fragile nature of the alpine vegetation and conduct research on the populations of rare, threatened and endangered plant species. » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) and the Adirondack Chapter of The Nature Conservancy have announced that the Adirondack High Peaks Summit Stewardship Program was awarded the New York State Environmental Excellence Award at a ceremony on November 15th at Union College.
The annual award is given by the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation in recognition of outstanding, innovative and sustainable projects or programs and unique partnerships that are contributing to a healthier environment and economy and serving as models of excellence. According to the DEC, award winners are an elite group of committed organizations leading by example as serving as models of excellence within their industry and community. » Continue Reading.
The growing number of hikers in the High Peaks in recent years has heightened concern for the fragile alpine vegetation found on many of the summits.
If the number continues to increase, summit stewards charged with educating hikers may find themselves overwhelmed, said Julia Goren, the Adirondack Mountain Club’s education director.
“I don’t think we’ve lost ground yet,” said Goren, who heads the summit-steward program. “But I do think it’s not hyperbolic that we’re kind of at a tipping point where there’s not much more we can take before there’s going to be some kind of loss. One summit steward can’t talk to six hundred people in a day and make sure that people are respecting every patch of alpine vegetation.” » Continue Reading.
The Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) has announced that Summit Stewards interacted with their 400,000th hiker last week. Summit Stewards are naturalists who work at the top of mountains in the High Peaks region of the Adirondacks educating hikers in an effort to prevent them from walking on or otherwise damaging New York’s rarest plants, those of the alpine zone.
The program began in 1990 and will reach an estimated 28,000 hikers at the tops of Mt. Marcy, Algonquin, Wright, Colden, Cascade, Haystack, Giant, Gothics, Basin and Saddleback this year. » Continue Reading.
In August of 1968, Edwin Ketchledge finished climbing the 46 high peaks of the Adirondacks and received his 46er number, #507. Dr. Ketchledge (“Ketch”) was no ordinary peak-bagger. He was a professor of botany at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, an active member of the Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK), later a President of the 46ers, and a researcher very much interested in the fragile ecosystem found on the Adirondack High Peaks.
Dr. Ketchledge began experimenting ways to help the alpine ecosystem recover from trampling caused by hikers in 1967. His research began on the summits of Dix Mt. and Mt. Colden. He began by transplanting Deer’s hair sedge, one of the rare alpine species, to see if it could successfully colonize impacted areas. It could not. » Continue Reading.
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Wilderness Training to Match our Mountains
None of what gets debated weekly about the High Peaks is truly untethered from these historical roots. As Almanack contributor Ed Zahniser has written, “take courage for your own work for visitor use management in wilderness. It has a history, a history set in concern for the common good, a history stemming from the American people’s long-standing concern to protect some remnant of our public lands in their wild, natural state. “
» Continue Reading.