By TIM ROWLAND
A signature ethos of the Adirondack Park is to let the vegetation grow wild and free without fear of being laid low by saws or loppers. But where some scenic views along Adirondack highways are concerned, state agents are hoping to make an exception.
There are at least 37 scenic pull-offs in the park, but some of these grand views have been compromised by vegetation, a point illustrated by a presentation to the Adirondack Park Agency last week as the board considered final passage of a travel corridor management plan.
“I think we need to give (the Department of Transportation) some guidance and say, you need to maintain the vistas, and the Adirondack Park Agency is supportive of maintaining the vistas,” said APA Board Member Art Lussi.
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Lussi’s comments came after seeing a slide of an overview of Seventh Lake east of Inlet on Route 28 taken from a 1930s postcard juxtaposed with a photo showing the same view today. Eighty or so years ago, motorists had a broad, spectacular view of the lake, but today that view is seen through a veil of trees and shrubs.
That may be changing. The APA gave final approval at its May meeting to the Travel Corridor Unit Management Plan, as well as the Hammond Pond Wild Forest Unit Management Plan. Both documents will significantly affect how innumerable travelers view the park well into the future. The first offers policies governing the Adirondacks’ road and rail systems, while the second is a blueprint for wild forests that will play host to a new segment of a national scenic trail that’s currently under development.
The travel plan affects not just state highways, but what people can see from those roads. It influences everything from the color of the road signs (the familiar Adirondack yellow-on-brown), to hiker parking, to control of invasive species, to the size and style of culverts — which ideally would be ample enough to allow animals to pass underneath.
The plan also drew attention last year when it was drawn so as to remove a technical obstacle to a controversial rail-trail proposal west of Lake Placid.
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The Adirondacks has a goodly share of hikers, climbers and paddlers, but highway planners have noted the majority of tourists form their impression of the Adirondacks by what they see from their car windows. Overgrown pullouts don’t always show the Adirondacks to their best advantage.
Deputy Planning Director Rick Weber said that brushing out the overlooks does not appear to run afoul of any state law governing the park. But if not prohibited, neither has it been greatly encouraged.
Lussi asked that the encouragement be forthcoming. “We said we were going to do this with a memorandum of understanding in 2009, but I feel like we don’t specifically say (in the plan) you have permission to cut the trees along the Seventh Lake vista,” Lussi said.
Weber said he expects the plan will examine all the vistas individually and eventually offer that guidance. “Yes it’s taken 10 years to get here, but it is moving along,” he said.
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The Hammond Pond management plan, meanwhile, is noteworthy for a number of new trail proposals, including a link that will take hikers on the North Country National Scenic Trail across the Hammond Pond Wild Forest to the Champlain Bridge at Crown Point and into Vermont, where it will connect with the Appalachian Trail.
It also lays out a number of horse and foot trails at Frontier Town in North Hudson, which is a signature state project that tries to redirect hikers from the overused Keene Valley to the south side of the High Peaks and little-used forests in areas such as Hammond Pond.
The 45,600-acre Hammond Pond Wild Forest stretches from Keene south to Ticonderoga, mostly between the Northway and Lake Champlain. It includes the popular venues of Baxter Mountain and Split Rock Falls, and calls for heavily damaged trails at both sites to be repaired.
Day hikers have run roughshod over Split Rock Falls in particular, eroding soil that has accumulated in fractures in the anorthosite rock, which APA planner Walt Linck said was formed 15 miles beneath the earth’s surface 1.1 billion years ago. “It’s a stunning site, a lot to look at and think about,” said Linck. “We aren’t going to stop the public use, and we don’t want to, but something has to be done.”
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Up until a couple years ago there was a vista stop along Rte 22 between Whitehall and Crown Point. It provided a fabulous view of the southern end of Lake Champlain and northeast to the Green Mountains. Sadly it was being used as a local dumping ground for household garbage, mattresses, deer carcasses etc. Also a semi trailer would sometimes be left parked there. Sadly this gem is now inaccessible with guardrails installed to block access. Another stop is nearby but is not nearly as beautiful.
At the March meeting of the ForestPreserve Advisory Committee, Ed Frantz of the DOT presented a proposal to clear coniferous trees to allow more sunlight to reach the road’s surface and melt ice “naturally” rather than having to use more salt. Frantz was clear that this cutting would only occur in places where a thin line of coniferous trees was backed by a stand of hardwoods. In many cases, these coniferous trees have grown up on areas that were disturbed by road cuts in the original construction of the highway. I thought Frantz’s proposal made a great deal of sense, but there were objections because some of these coniferous stands were outside of the DOT right-of-way and therefore technically on the Forest Preserve.
However, if the APA is now willing to consider cutting trees on the Forest Preserve merely for aesthetic reasons, I would think that cutting trees on the Forest Preserve to improve safety and reduce salt use would take precedence over view improvement.
Tony,
Another good reason to cut conifers and brush back within the ROW is to improve driver visibility, which could possibly help reduce car-animal collisions. The only time trees/brush in the ROW may be of benefit is to protect a steep embankment that starts within the ROW (think smaller roads).
If the APA is so darn worried about Park vistas then perhaps it should also consider some level of protection for those still in private hands. Obviously they cannot purchase many of those and I don’t think it would be wise or balanced policy to do so. That said, here is yet one more example of the need and wisdom to move to a clustered development mode. Please make this a top priority.