The Park Tote Road north of Nesowadnehunk Lake and south of Trout Brook Crossing remains very soft and remains closed to vehicle traffic. We'll check it again this week. We will also check the South Branch Pond Road this week. Park Ranger Mike Winslow checked the Abol Trail late last week and found conditions on the Tableland very soft and wet. These are exactly the early spring conditions that would lead to trail and vegetation damage if the trail were open to hiking traffic. Over the weekend, BSP Rangers issued citations to four hikers from Massachusetts who ignored the trail closed signs and hiked Katahdin. As much as I love hiking Katahdin, I don't think it's worth $200 for a day hike. Rangers will be regularly checking the trail and we will open Katahdin access trails as soon as conditions permit, in the meantime, we thank you for respecting our efforts to protect the fragile and rare resources on Katahdin.
Many of our campground rangers will be returning to work today - a sure sign of spring. They will be taking some training and then working this week on cleaning campgrounds and getting set up for the summer season.
On Saturday, May 5, I joined a couple dozen helpful volunteers for the Park's annual spring pick-up day. We worked along the Millinocket Lake Road between Millinocket and Millinocket Lake cleaning up trash and debris. I've joined in with this effort for a number of years now - I remember that when I started I was picking up cassette tapes, then discarded CD's. Now that music is mostly digital, even CD's have become rare - one less item in the waste stream! Our thanks to Park Volunteer Laurie Rich for her assistance in organizing the event and all the volunteers who pitched in to "brighten the corner where we are".
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| Steve and Elaine on litter patrol |
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| Volunteer Nelson Daigle |
