We all had a great at Tuesday night’s Greendrinks on Peaks Island. There were about 300 attendees who came for the beer and to hear a little about the Southern Maine Conservation Collaborative (of which Maine A.T. Land Trust is a member). Some of them also took home great raffle prizes, thanks to Otto Pizza, Longfellow Books and Patagonia.
Thanks to all who came! And to our sponsors and Portland Greendrinks. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to do it again.
Photo album here.
As part of Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust’s membership with the Southern Maine Conservation Collaborative, we are going to be attending the next Portland Greendrinks event on October 14th! We are very excited to have the opportunity to take part in this, and even more excited about the setting on Peaks Island. If you didn’t know already – the goal of Greendrinks is pretty simple: good times shared among people working in, or interested in, environmental and sustainability issues. That’s us and that’s you.
The way it works is this: 1) buy your ticket here; 2) show up at the Casco Bay Lines ferry terminal at 5:15pm, 5:35pm or 6pm with your own beer cup/mug/tankard; 3) have a good time, network and enjoy a beer or two from brewers like Peak Organic, Sebago, Allagash and Rising Tide at the Peaks Island Lions Club.
This is a great opportunity to meet some very fun, very cool people in a great setting. And you can learn more about all of the land trust who work with the Southern Maine Conservation Collaborative.
Maine A.T. Land Trust’s Great Maine Outdoor Weekend hike took place on Saturday and as you can see from the photo above, we had a good sturdy crew on board tackle Mount Abraham via the Fire Warden Trail. We had six members of the Colby College Outing Club (COC), longtime Maine land trust supporter James, and Maine A.T. Land Trust Vice President Pete McKinley. The weather couldn’t have been nicer – temps in the low 80’s, low humidity with just a bit of haze on the horizon.
After crossing the two branches of Rapid Stream and leaving the ATV route that leads to the trailhead, we quickly headed up through the low-elevation hardwood forest and stopped for a break at the Maine Appalachian Trail Club-maintained campsite 3.5 miles from the parking lot.
We headed above treeline and some of us actually had to apply sunblock. Everybody hiked at a different pace but we all made it to the summit for a much-deserved lunch break in the sunshine.
The trip down was uneventful and the easy terrain was easy on the knees in the waning afternoon sunshine. The temperature dropped to about 70 degrees by the time we had to cross back over Rapid Stream.
We did have one hiker fall into the water, but he took it in stride since Maine A.T. Land Trust Executive Director Simon Rucker let him take home the leftover granola bars. It was a great trip and COC is planning to attend the land trust’s winter Great Maine Outdoor Weekend hike as well.
More photos can be found here.
Our Great Maine Outdoor Weekend hike is set – Mount Abraham won the poll by a landslide so we will be heading up there on Saturday, September 27th at 9:30am. You MUST RSVP for this hike either by emailing us at info@matlt.org or by RSVPing here at our Facebook page.
We will be posting lots of info about the fascinating ecological highlights of Mount Abraham, the mountain’s history, and Maine A.T. Land Trust’s work there over the past ten years. A great place to start is the Maine Bureau of Parks and Land’s Management Plan for the area.
And of course we will be posting full directions and updates on the weather as we get closer to the date. Don’t forget that we will have a limited supply of the wonderful GMOW posters to give away at the trailhead.
The Great Maine Outdoor Weekend is rapidly approaching (September 26 to 28) and we want to know where you want to go. Our Executive Director, Simon Rucker, will be leading a hike…somewhere. Head over to our poll and let us know where YOU want to go.
The 2014 Rangeley Trail Town Festival, which is an annual celebration of towns along the Appalachian Trail that support hikers and work to protect the land and trails, was held this past Saturday in downtown Rangeley. It was a beautiful day and lots of people came out to see what different groups who work on the trail do. Among the crowd were many thru hikers who were happy to spend an afternoon off the trail. Also, they got to join the ice cream eating contest for free (courtesy of Gifford’s).
Special thanks to Linda Dexter of Ecopelagicon for organizing the festival. This year will be hard to top but we can’t wait for next year!
Congratulations to the Kallin family! They completed their hike ahead of schedule and became just the sixteenth family to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. You can read more about their final day on the trail here.
We had a nice article appear in The Irregular last week!
Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust will be at the Rangeley Trail Town Festival on August 30th. You can check the event website for more info (it will be updated periodically).
After an exhaustive search, Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust hired a new executive director in March. Simon Rucker grew up hiking in the mountains of Maine and after living in New York City for ten years, he decided he wanted to settle in a place with clean air, tall trees and over 281 miles of Appalachian Trail to hike on with his wife and two children. He comes to Maine A.T. Land Trust from one of our partner organizations, The Trust for Public Land. In his project work in New York, Simon saw first-hand how deeply development and incompatible uses can effect conservation land. Land along the Appalachian Trail corridor in Maine is largely unprotected. Under Simon’s leadership we hope Maine A.T. Land Trust can help to conserve vulnerable lands for use by future generations. And we need your support!
