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Conservation Commission

Conservation and More

              by Bruce B. Beckley

Issue #143, August, 2003
Doing Things Right

Doing It Right – Up North

The Crawford boys did a good job. In 1819 Able and Ethan Allen Crawford laid out and built the trail to Mount Washington that bears their name. The Crawford Path, laid out for ponies to carry guests to the Tip Top House, is the oldest mountain trail in continuous use in America. Unlike so many trails built much more recently, the Crawford Path is not a brook in disguise. There has been little erosion in its 184 years of use and current maintenance is excellent.

We spent a week recently walking trails of the White Mountain National Forest and along the Cohos Trail in the North Country town of Stark. Overall, I guess our goal for the week was to escape from committees. On a daily basis, we explored, looked for birds, botanized, bushwhacked and escorted winged pests on walks. Over the course of the week and a three thousand foot elevation span, we identified over thirty plant species blooming in habitats ranging from the alpine zone with mats of diapensia and alpine azalea down to stream banks speckled with painted and wake robin trillium.

In Connecticut we knew hepaticas and trout lilies, two species we have yet to find growing naturally in Amherst. Yet, we found both species blooming on our walks. Please tell us if you know a spot where they can be found locally.

Forty years after the Crawford Path opened, Thomas Starr King (King’s Ravine) wrote in his book “The White Hills” an account of riding by pony up the Crawfords’ trail. In those first forty years of trail use the traffic, foot and equestrian, had expanded to 5,000 women and men per season reaching the summit. At the time, those who stayed over night paid $1.00 for food, lodging and a fire. Their rewards were views from Katahdin to Massachusetts and the Atlantic to Canada.

Starr King goes on to write (in 1859) “There is year by year now, however, an increasing proportion of visitors who desire more loneliness and wildness in the track, and more adventure in the experience.” Ah! Mr. King, if you could see the trails today, 150 years after your visits, with cell phones, GPS units, camel packs and little understanding or appreciation for the efforts the Crawford boys expended in making the natural world available to outdoors lovers.

In the words of the Kaddish:

The departed whom we now remember have entered into the peace of life eternal. They still live on earth in the acts of goodness they performed and in the hearts of those who cherish their memory. May the beauty of their life abide among us as a loving benediction.

Doing It Right – In The Flat Land

Parcels ranging in size from 3.5 acres up to 122 acres have been added to the list of ACC-managed property in the last three years, this century, if you will. In total, 461.3 acres have been received. The town-voted bonds for Lindabury Orchard and Joppa Hill Farm have made possible protecting these valuable scenic open spaces of 168 acres. (Incidentally, in spite of the sputterings about how the Bedford portion of JHF will be developed, the ACC will manage the Amherst portion of the farm for conservation purposes, as the voters intended.)

Bequests have accounted for 42 acres being left to the ACC. Donations from landowners, including the Amherst Land Trust, have brought 216 acres under permanent protection. The remaining acreage has been acquired with funds in the ACC land purchase account. Money from that fund which receives land use change tax fees (current Use) has also contributed to acquiring some of the other parcels.

Everyone in Amherst should be grateful for the gifts and accomplishments. Visit the ACC booth on the Fourth and see your lands in living color.

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