If you visited the Adirondacks in recent years you were
likely overwhelmed by the crowds.
Perhaps you planned on hiking one of the 46 high
peaks -- such as Marcy and Colden – or even lesser mountains elsewhere in the Park
(like Bald/Rondaxe) and quickly realized that everyone and his brother had the
same idea. It’s not uncommon in the summer to see cars overflowing from
designated parking areas and lining the roads for sometimes hundreds of yards.
You might have turned around and searched out trails
less traveled or maybe you joined the masses on their ascent. If you chose the
latter, you were likely taken aback by the throngs on the summit. Each one of
those cars likely held a family or a group of friends, meaning dozens, and
sometimes hundreds, were tackling the climb at once. It wasn’t what you expected
going to the Adirondacks -- you went there because you wanted to get away from
civilization.
Where are all these people coming from -- haven’t
we been told that the computers forced everyone indoors and away from Mother Nature?
The opposite has occurred. The power of social
media – the shared experience, the photographs, the desire to beat the Joneses –
has driven people outdoors to see what their friends saw and do what they did. Every
time someone shares on Instagram a picture of the view from say, Mount
Haystack, it’s incentive to join in the fun.
This is not just anecdotal, not just a feel that
things are busy in the wilderness. It’s real. In the 10 years ending 2015, foot
traffic at Cascade alone more than doubled from 16,000 hikers a year to 33,000.
Over that same period, Van Hoevenberg saw a 62 percent increase in hikers – 53,500
people climbed the peak in 2015. Those are just two trails!
Because of that, many areas of the Park -- and the infrastructure
and the environment -- are facing serious overuse.
Look at parking. Last fall, in advance of the
Columbus Day crush, as a means to curtail dangerous and destructive roadside
parking and traffic jams the Department of Environmental Conservation announced
that hikers would not be allowed to use the parking areas for Cascade, Porter and
Pitchoff Mountains. They were forced to park at Mount Van Hoevenberg which had unsuspecting
hikers add another 4 miles round-trip to their hikes.
That was just one weekend, a symptom of a greater
crisis. A study found that 35 parking lots in the High Peaks were designed to
hold fewer than 1,000 cars yet frequently had more than 2,000 trying to park in
them on any given day in the summer.
This surge in hikers has led to an environmental
nightmare. The unsuspecting are trampling alpine plants that took decades to
restore. Trash and human waste are being left along the trails. Animals are
being harassed. Nuisance bears are being trained. The very definition of
wilderness has been eroding along with the trails that lead into it.
Not only is the Park itself facing overuse, but so
are the men and women who are trying to manage the people, places, plants, and
peaks. We have too few forest rangers to handle all of those concerns.
Today, there are 137 forest rangers responsible for
4.9 million acres of DEC-administered lands. Back in 1970, there were 140
forest rangers and only 3.5 million total acres of DEC land. So, over the past
half century, the number of forest rangers has slightly declined while the DEC
has acquired roughly 30 percent more land and – using the Adirondacks as an
example – a few million more users.
In 2012, NYS rangers patrolled 2,600 interior miles
on foot in the High Peaks. 4 years later, that number was down by nearly a
third. That’s because of the lack of manpower and changing conditions. Forest
rangers are now required to focus on parking and traffic control and trail
clean-up, instead of doing what they were hired to do – that is, protect the
environment and the people using it. Too few men and women are able to save the
trails and endangered species or educate hikers on where to go, how to dress,
and what to look for.
That last part has led to something of a public
health crisis. A lot of those Facebook users looking to work their way into the
Adirondack 46ers club aren’t experienced or competent outdoorspeople. They don’t
have the right clothing, footwear, shelter, food, or water, which puts them at
risk. Somebody has to save them and the overworked rangers are. Rangers completed
62 search-and-rescue incidents in the High Peaks in 2012. By 2016, there were
98. Putting such hard works on so few puts the rangers at risk as well as those
they are trying to save.
The rangers and countless Adirondacks organizations
have tried hard to get the state to add more rangers. But, it’s fallen on deaf
ears. Another budget session came and went in Albany and neither Governor Cuomo
or DEC Commissioner Seggos saw the need to add to the payroll.
Maybe it’s time they heard this message from the
rest of the state. Many of us here in Western New York go there with family and
friends, so we need to speak up. The Adirondacks belong to all of us. The Park
is a public asset that should be enjoyed, safely and naturally. In order for
that to happen we need more rangers.
From the 23
July 2018 Greater Niagara Newspapers and Batavia Daily News
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