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Fall Fund Visit to the Adirondacks This past month, the Waterman Fund board trekked to the Adirondacks, for a visit with our partners at ADK, the Adirondack Mountain Club. For those members of the board more familiar with alpine stewardship challenges in Maine, the White or Green Mountains, it was a splendid opportunity to visit with summit stewards, rangers, and managers in the Adirondacks and learn about their alpine stewardship work, and understand their unique challenges. 
The weekend began with several hikes, including a trip up Mount Wright, guided by ADK's Director of Field Programs Wes Lampman and longtime Adirondack Ranger Pete Fish. 
Summit Stewards Nate Becker and Julia Goren provided valuable insight into ADK's ongoing summit steward program in the heavily traveled high peaks region. 
The summit steward program, now in its 18th year, has three goals: public outreach, light trail work and botany research, including monitoring of alpine plant populations and rare plant inventories. The high peaks region sees significant hiker traffic. On Algonquin alone, summit stewards spoke with 2186 hikers in August. 
One of ADK's recent success stories is a new "Carry A Rock" program,
in which hikers are asked to carry one small rock to the relatively
rock-free alpine summits. The rocks are then used to build small
retaining walls, reducing soil erosion caused by hiker's boots. Over
the course of the summer, hikers moved no less than three truckloads
of rocks! In addition to accomplishing a needed task, the project
provided an opportunity for summit stewards to engage hikers on
alpine stewardship issues.
After hiking, over forty Fund members, friends and partners enjoyed a fabulous dinner at Adirondack Rock and River, in Keene. Matt and Julia treated all present to an alpine slide show, and discussion of Julia's alpine plant population studies, which was funded in part by New York State Heritage Foundation. Following the show, an in-depth discussion ensued, ranging from stewardship successes to date, present challenges and looming issues. 
The Fund would like to thank Wes Lampman, Nate Becker, Julia Goren,
Pete Fish, Ed Palen of Adirondack Rock and River-- Nancy Both for
the fabulous catering. We look forward to similar events in the
future, with other Waterman Fund partners!
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