The Maine Woods Initiative

The Appalachian Mountain Club's Maine Woods Initiative is the organization's largest investment in conservation and recreation in it's 133 year old history. The program is working to preserve Maine's 100 Mile Wilderness, an area of the Appalachian Trail that runs from Monson, Maine to the AT's northern most point, Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park. In addition to the AMC's purchase of the 37,000 acres of forestland known as the Katahdin Iron Works (KIW) tract, they own and operate Little Lyford Lodge and Cabins, a traditional Maine sporting camp established in 1874, and Medawisla Wilderness Lodge and Cabins on Second Roach Pond.Check out the AMC's video outlining the project and then donate here.

get out of the goddamned contraption and walk

"You can’t see anything from a car; you’ve got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet, crawl, on hands and knees over the sandstone; through the thornbush and cactus." - Edward AbbeyBackpacker:

This Saturday, between 500 and 1,000 ATVs, Jeeps, and other off-road vehicles plan to illegally drive up the riverbed of the Paria Canyon in a BLM wilderness study area near Kanab, Utah. They're doing it to protest BLM plans to actually enforce keeping ORVs out of this wilderness area near Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.But you can stop it with a simple mouse click and a bit of typing: The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance set up an automated form which will send a fax to the acting director of the BLM urging him to enforce the law and stop the protesters from trashing the desert landscape.For years, the Utah BLM looked the other way when ORV users used the Paria Canyon to access the ghost town of Paria, but the expectation is that it could change under the new administration. This is your chance to take a second to show your support for protecting Utah wilderness.

STOP THEM! (Then find me a 4Runner)MP3: R.E.M. - The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonite

Bee On Cocaine

Scientists in Australia have been putting liquified freebase cocaine on the backs of bees in order to study the biochemistry of addiction. Interesting.Noah Baumbach recently wrote a piece for The New Yorker about one of those bees:

Oh, my God, get over here . . . hurry . . . come on come on come on. Taste this nectar, taste it, taste it. . . . Slurp. . . . Is that not, is that not the best fucking thing you’ve ever had?

MP3: Jackson Browne - Cocaine

Chase Lake, North Dakota

hiAnyone ever been to Chase Lake Wilderness or Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota to see the pelican colony?

If you were to tally up all of the white pelicans that nest on two islands in this isolated alkali lake, you'd find more than 20,000, one of the largest colonies in North America. That figure is all the more impressive (and heartening) when you consider that only 50 birds inhabited the region when the area was officially slated for protection in 1908. Birders may observe these creatures from a rise near the lake, but the islands themselves are strictly off-limits. In addition to pelicans, you may encounter ducks, geese, swans, sharp-tailed grouse, ring-necked pheasants, gulls, cormorants, white-tailed deer, and many smaller mammals. Facilities are not available on site, and camping is not permitted. Of the 4,385 acres of Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge, 230 (separated from the rest of the refuge by a powerline) were not designated as Wilderness. The lake itself takes up more than half of the area; the remaining acreage is grassland and wetland with very few trees.

We Shall Remain: Geronimo

geronimoDon't forget to tune into PBS tonight for Episode 4 of We Shall Remain:

In February of 1909, the indomitable Chiricahua Apache medicine man Geronimo lay on his deathbed. He summoned his nephew to his side, whispering, “I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive.” It was an admission of regret from a man whose insistent pursuit of military resistance in the face of overwhelming odds confounded not only his Mexican and American enemies, but many of his fellow Apaches as well.

Pete Seeger

screenshot_012New Yorker, April 17th, 2006: Here is a story told to me lately by a man named John Cronin, who is the director of the Pace Academy for the Environment, at Pace University. Cronin has known Seeger for thirty years. "About two winters ago, on Route 9 outside Beacon, one winter day, it was freezing—rainy and slushy, a miserable winter day—the war in Iraq is just heating up and the country's in a poor mood," Cronin said. "I'm driving north, and on the other side of the road I see from the back a tall, slim figure in a hood and coat. I'm looking, and I can tell it's Pete, He's standing there all by himself, and he's holding up a big piece of cardboard that clearly has something written on it. Cars and trucks are going by him. He's getting wet. He's holding the homemade sign above his head—he's very tall, and his chin is raised the way he does when he sings—and he's turning the sign in a semicircle, so that the drivers can see it as they pass, and some people are honking and waving at him, and some people are giving him the finger. He's eighty-four years old. I know he's got some purpose, of course, but I don't know what it is. What struck me is that, whatever his intentions are, and obviously he wants people to notice what he's doing, he wants to make an impression—anyway, whatever they are, he doesn't call the newspapers and say, 'I'm Pete Seeger, here's what I'm going to do.' He doesn't cultivate publicity. That isn't what he does. He's far more modest than that. He would never make a fuss. He's just standing out there in the cold and the sleet like a scarecrow. I go a little bit down the road, so that I can turn and come back, and when I get him in view again, this solitary and elderly figure, I see that what he's written on the sign is 'Peace.'"Cold Splinters: The River Is WideMP3: Pete Seeger - The Flowers Of Peace

Justice Souter in New Hampshire

What a cool judge.NYT:

Justice Souter was born in Massachusetts but moved to New Hampshire when he was 11, settling into his grandparents’ farmhouse on Cilley Hill Road. After going to college and law school at Harvard, he returned to New Hampshire to practice law and quickly became the state’s attorney general, scaling the White Mountains in his down time.“A lot of people would live up here and hate it,” said Wilbur A. Glahn, a lawyer who has known Justice Souter since 1975 and still hikes with him in the summer. “But David has got a real love for the people and the land and the simple things here. I’m not sure I know a lot of people who are more connected to a place than he is. It’s a very strong, kind of visceral feeling that he has.”

RMNP Requires Bear Canisters

RMNP Ranger: So do you want to rent a bear canister if you'll be out in the backcountry?Me: Nah, I think we'll be good.RMNP Ranger: Highly recommend it.Me: Yeah, well, I guess...actually, no we're fine.RMNP Ranger: You're sure?Me: Jim, do you want to get bear canister? Ranger says we should.Jim: No, man.Me: Ok, thanks, we're fine.Starting May 1st, Rocky Mountain National Park is requiring bear canisters on all overnight trips. (via Backpacker)

We Shall Remain: The Trail Of Tears

screenshot_011The third episode of We Shall Remain, Trail Of Tears, aired last night, and if you haven't been watching these documentaries on PBS, you should. Yeah, there's the American Experience historical documentary acting, but Wes Studi made an appearance in last night's episode, so you can't get too hell bent on that. The documentaries are interesting because, ultimately, they show that the Native Americans played an active role in their own history.The Trail Of Tears refers to the march that southeast Native Americans made to Oklahoma after being relocated by the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Last night's episode focused on the Cherokees, who set up a European legal system, became Christian, and adopted their education system to the Western world, only to be forced out by the government and local militia. 4,000 of the 15,000 Cherokees that walked to Oklahoma, while singing Christian hymns, would die and never get to see the the new life that they made for themselves.Next week's episode focuses on the infamous leader of Chiricahua Apaches, Geronimo.We Shall Remain on PBS

Old Man Of The Mountain Goes Glass

I got back from a nice night of camping yesterday to find an envelope from the New Hampshire Department Of Motor Vehicles waiting for me in my mailbox. Finally, my replacement driver's license is in my wallet. I lost my license a little while ago, and instead of going up to the New York DMV, I sent 10 dollars in the mail to New Hampshire (my folks live in Portsmouth, NH) for a replacement. It was a pain in the ass carrying around my passport everywhere I went. Literally.Point of the story is that an artist has proposed to replicate the New Hampshire symbol, The Old Man Of The Mountain, with a glass structure that people would be able to walk into. The Old Man crumbled to the ground in May of 2003, but it still adorns just about everything in The Granite State. Seems like a really really bad idea. Let the Old Man rest in peace. Full story is at GoBlog.