THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 13, 1996 TAG: 9605130027
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: PORTLAND, MAINE LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
The Appalachian Trail is drawing more through-hikers this spring, prompting concern among trail officials who are looking at ways to keep the nation's most famous footpath from falling victim to overuse.
Preliminary figures indicate that the number of through-hikers en route from Georgia through North Carolina and Virginia to Maine is 10 to 17 percent higher than last year, the steepest increase in at least nine years.
In response to those figures, trail overseers are considering measures to avert overcrowding.
``There is a swing toward making the trail a little more primitive,'' says Brian King, who directs public affairs for the Appalachian Trail Conference in Harpers Ferry, W.Va. ``The idea is to make it less easy.''
Among the recommendations are painting over some blazes (trail markers) to discourage trail use by novices and building trail-side camp sites to relieve crowded shelters.
King and David Field, chairman of the Appalachian Trail Conference, say the surge in trail usage is due in large part to last year's six-month Appalachian Adventure series, which was published in the Maine Sunday Telegram, the Hartford Courant, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Raleigh News & Observer and the Atlanta Journal and Constitution.
The series, which chronicled the through-hike experience, was subsequently published as a book. It also appears on the World Wide Web.
The Appalachian Trail Conference became aware of the increased trail pressure when volunteers monitoring through-hiker traffic this spring reported a 10 percent increase at Neels Gap in Georgia and a 17 percent rise at Gatlinburg, Tenn.
During the past five to nine years, the number of through-hikers has never increased by more than 3 to 5 percent. Historically, about 2,000 begin the northbound trek from Springer Mountain in Georgia and about 200 finish at Mount Katahdin in Maine. The last big surge in through-hiker numbers happened in 1987, when National Geographic magazine wrote about the trail.
Even before the spring count, trail officials had an inkling that usage would be up sharply because of higher sales of trail maps.
``My immediate reaction,'' says King, ``is that our job is bigger. The meaning of what it means to manage this park gets harder every year.''
Besides eliminating some blazes and bridges along the trail, suggestions by Field and others include a moratorium on new trail construction, except to fix erosion problems. The idea of diverting hikers to parallel northbound trails is under consideration.
The biggest change, say King and others, may be construction of numerous trail-side tent sites to take pressure off crowded, sometimes unsanitary lean-tos.
The Maine Appalachian Trail Club already has decided to switch from shelter building to campsite construction, says Paul Johnson, its president. He said the last new lean-to planned for the 267-mile section of trail maintained by the club will go up this summer on a remote section of trail north of Brownville Junction.
``After that,'' he says, ``we'll concentrate more on (building) campsites where we can find a reliable source of water. That will enable us to disperse people so we won't have these big cities of campers.'' by CNB