The Maine Appalachian Trail Club is extremely fortunate to have much of the AT in Maine surrounded by 34,000 acres of National Park Service land, but caring for and protecting that land is essential.

MATC Corridor Monitors walk the Trail and the corridor boundary lines looking for timber trespass, trash dumping, illegal motor vehicle crossings, and other encroachments that threaten the condition of corridor resources and reduce the quality of the AT experience. The surveyed boundary itself must be kept clearly visible so that neighboring landowners know where it is, and the regular inspection of boundary line monuments helps to protect against a need for very expensive re-surveys that could be required if monuments are lost. Corridor monitoring offers an opportunity to get off the AT footpath and explore some incredibly beautiful areas that those who only walk the Trail never see. For those seeking something new in Trail stewardship, as well as a little excitement and a chance to satisfy an urge to explore, corridor monitoring may be just what you are looking for. At present, the sections listed below are available for monitoring.

2012 Corridor Monitoring Annual Report – PDF File - Posted 1-25-13

OPEN MATC CORRIDOR MONITORING ASSIGNMENTS 

(Updated 1/25/2013) 

There are still some great opportunities for becoming involved in this relatively new, exciting aspect of caring for the Appalachian Trail in Maine.  For information about corridor monitoring and field training sessions, visit the MATC website at www.matc.org or contact me (Dave Field) at 862-3674, meeser3@roadrunner.com.  You must participate in a field training session before an assignment will be made permanent.  If you are unable to join a group session, I will make arrangements to train you on your own section.

Section 14.  B Pond Road to East Branch of the Pleasant River.  This roughly 4.6-mile section begins near Crawford Pond, passes over Little Boardman Mt., and skirts Mt. View Pond.  The terrain varies from gentle to challenging with plenty of good views.  The boundary was surveyed in 1995.  Access is very good over the Jo-Mary road system from Route 11.

Section 18. White Brook Trail to Gulf Hagas Mountain.  This roughly four-mile section was surveyed in 1994, but the lines are still in fairly good shape.  You can drive to within a 20-minute walk of the north side, east end of the section. The boundary was surveyed in 1994.

Section 30.  Doughty Pond Side Trail to Old Sturtevant Road.  This is a great “starter” assignment for anyone interested in corridor monitoring.  Access is excellent from the A.T. in Monson and the terrain is gentle.  The section includes only 2.55 miles of boundary line. 

Section 31.  Old Sturtevant Road to I.P. Main Haul Road.  Like Section 30, this is also a great starter assignment.  Access is excellent from the A.T. in Monson and the terrain is nearly flat.  The section includes only 2.72 miles of boundary line plus some Lake Hebron shoreline.

Section 34.  Horseshoe Canyon Lean-to to Marble Brook.  This 3.4-mile sections has boundary lines along both sides of the West Branch of the Piscataquis River, but follows relatively gentle, lowland terrain through primarily hardwood forest.  It is accessible via logging roads at the southerly end. The boundary was surveyed in 1994.

Section 36.  Outlet of Bald Mt. Pond to Moxie Pond at Joe’s Hole.  This is an exciting, long (9 miles) assignment that crosses spectacular terrain over Moxie Bald Mt.  Most of the land is in National Park Service ownership, but the section also crosses the Maine Bureau of Parks & Lands Bald Mt. Pond Unit.  The NPS land was surveyed in 1997, but most of the boundary has been re-cleared and re-blazed by the abutting landowner during the past couple of years.

Section 38.  Summit of Pleasant Pond Mt. to Boise Cascade Road.  This is a highly scenic section with great access that is less than two miles long.

Section 44.   Sandy Stream to Southwest Inlet of West Carry Pond.   This 3.6-mile section crosses very gentle terrain across historic “Arnold Trail” territory past scenic West Carry Pond.

Section 53.  Highway 27 to the Summit of North Crocker.  This is a long section (parallels five miles of the A.T.) but with excellent access and fairly easy terrain.  Many of the monuments have already been documented but the corridor boundary needs clearing and re-blazing.

Section 64. Bemis Stream Trail to the Old Clearwater Brook Trail.  This is a remote section, about four miles long, that requires access by foot along the Bemis Stream Trail from Maine Route 17 or the old railroad grade in Bemis Valley. The boundary was surveyed in 1989.

Section 65. Old Clearwater Brook Trail to South Arm Road.  This is a rugged section up Old Blue Mt. and down into Black Brook Notch but the scenery is great.  Surveyed in 1990.  Much of the boundary was re-cleared and re-blazed in 2011.

Section 68.  Wyman Mt. to the East B Hill Road. This is a relatively gentle section with great access that also has had all of the boundary lines cleared and re-blazed during 2011 and 2012.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is a tract and what is the A.T. corridor?A tract is a unit of land that includes the Appalachian Trail within its boundary. One tract is connected to the next tract, and the next, and so on. The connected tracts define the A.T. corridor through Maine, from Katahdin to the Mahoosucs. The A.T. runs north-south inside the corridor boundary. Don’t assume the corridor is always 1,000 feet wide. Tracts vary in size and width. NPS, BSP, BPL and others own the A.T. corridor in Maine. The Maine Appalachian Trail Club looks after the corridor lands and the trail.

Are corridor monitoring sections and trail maintenance sections the same?

When the A.T. corridor was laid out across Maine, the tract and corridor sections did not coincide with trail maintenance sections. Some MATC designated corridor monitoring sections nearly coincide with trail maintenance sections, others don’t. This is why there are 70 corridor monitoring sections and 90 trail maintenance sections on the A.T. in Maine.

Is maintaining a section of trail the same as monitoring a section of corridor?

The two are very different jobs. Maintaining the A.T. is about assessing, planning and responding to conditions right on and immediately along the trail. The scope of trail maintenance is trail focused, period.

Monitoring is tract and corridor focused. Corridor monitors assess and respond to conditions beyond the immediate trail, all the way out to the boundary line of the corridor tract. It includes assessing activities that may be occurring just outside the corridor, or activities that may be intruding across the boundary line into the interior of the corridor.

Some examples are timber trespass, offroad vehicles, dumping, and other alterations of the tract from human activity. Changes in the natural environment from insects, disease, or forest fires can also be a part of the scope of corridor monitoring.

Can I be a corridor monitor, but not maintain a section of trail?

Certainly. While some trail maintainers also monitor the immediate corridor, others don’t. If corridor monitoring appeals to your interests, there are plenty of corridor monitoring sections along the A.T. in Maine that are available for your care and contribution.

Corridor Monitoring activity means contracting to:

• Get off the trail with map and compass and go out across the tract.
• Walk on out to the boundary lines of the corridor section.
• Look for signs of intrusion into the corridor tract.
• Walk the boundary lines more often when activity is occurring next door.
• Report incidents and your annual activity in a timely fashion.
• Revisit and check up when adjacent activities or corridor incidents occur.
• Communicate with your A.T. District Overseer and Overseer of Lands

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Dave Field’s report on the 2011 workshops: Posted 2-13-12

2011 Corridor Monitoring Workshop, 4 June, Dave Field

Bill Geller, John Webster, Mike Davis, Ray Ronan, Rebecca Clark, Dennis Pednault and I met at the A.T. trailhead in Black Brook Notch.  After a brief tailgate discussion at the South Arm Road trailhead, we hiked up to the north rim of the Notch and left the A.T. footpath eastward looking for corridor monument 115-ME-3.  We located it after some floundering around and then walked the eastern boundary up towards Old Blue, ending the boundary walk at 115-ME-1 in heavy spruce-fir undergrowth and heading back to the A.T. footpath.  We took digital photos of all monuments and their surroundings.

2011 August Work Trip, 12-14, Dave Field

This was the Maine Appalachian Trail Club August Work Trip, but only seven people, all corridor monitors, showed up.  I arrived at 1:00 PM Friday the 12th and began to clean up the debris at the Surplus Pond cabin.  Stan and Michelle Moody arrived about 3:00 PM and we worked the rest of the afternoon, filling eight 40-gallon trash bags with cabin junk and extracting two box springs and other stuff from the loft.  Dennis Pednault joined us at 9:00 AM Saturday and the four of us cleared, re-blazed, and documented monuments along 1.2 miles of the west corridor boundary line and 0.3 of a mile along the east line.  Jonathan Ellis met us on the A.T. and worked on the east side.  In addition to clearing and blazing, we installed new “U.S. Boundary” signs so that one appears about every 300 feet along the line.  Dennis, Stan, and Michelle left Saturday evening, but Tony and Bob Barrett joined Jonathan and me on Sunday.  We cleared, blazed, signed, and documented the east line for 0.8 of a mile from the Burroughs Brook Road to monument 115-ME-15B, joining up with the work completed on Saturday just as a very lively thunderstorm hit is.  It made no sense trying to paint any more blazes, so we hiked back to Surplus Pond and finished up the afternoon cleaning out more of the cabin.  In total, we hauled out 10 40-gallon trash bags of paper, clothing, metal, plastic, fiberglass insulation, etc. and two twin box springs.

 

Who do I contact to become an MATC Corridor Monitor?

David Field
MATC Overseer of Lands
191 Emerson Mill Road
Hampden, Maine 04444
Email: meeser3@roadrunner.com

For more on corridor monitoring, Dave says to read this “great article on the work that ATC surveyor Sally Naser has been doing in northern New England with her tiny boundary maintenance crew.” The 929kb pdf file is from the latest issue of AT Journeys. It can be downloaded from the MATC site by using this url: Boundary Monitors Mahoosucs ATJ JanFeb2008.

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