What are some of the biggest hurdles you encounter in keeping the High Peaks region open and accessible for everyone to enjoy?

This neck of woods is fairly remote, but a lot of people love to come here and visit. It’s their happy place, but they don’t understand the local situation, where you have absentee owners and you have multiple different user types. You have conflicting ideals of what it should be, whether it should be all forever wild, or whether it should all be four-wheeler trails. 

The biggest difficulty is people realizing that they should take personal responsibility, that it’s not the role of the government or anyone else but us who care enough about it to take action. I see again and again, individuals making a huge difference, whether it’s one person on a snowmobile club keeping that trail system open, a volunteer on a hiking trail, or someone who got a conservation deal started. So, to me, that’s the biggest issue: People not taking it seriously that their individual efforts can make a difference.

 

How would you describe the mission of the Alliance, and what does it mean to you personally?

I would describe the mission of the High Peaks Alliance this area wild and free, open-to-use landscape. And it’s very important to me because I feel like everyone needs more time in nature. I think outdoor recreation lends itself to the most meaningful memories you can have with people and that these are the most worthwhile things to pass down to the next generation, meaning the landscapes, the places to go, and the memories.

 

Is there a particular project or initiative that you’ve worked on that you’re especially proud of? 

It’s probably obvious that Shiloh Pond is close to my heart. I grew up fishing there. I’d work at the Sugarloaf Golf Course and would drive down late afternoon, after my shift, and go there to fly fish. That’s where I learned to fly fish. It’s a small pond in Kingfield, and it’s still good fishing to this day. When I started this job as a part-timer people in the community forum in Kingfield were asking, “How do we conserve it?” And so, jumping on that, from being part-time and then seeing it conserved, and stepping up to be the first full-time Executive Director, that made a big difference. One, because I knew we were bringing value to the community. And two, it was a place that I felt personally passionate about so that kicked my efforts up in high gear.

 

What role do volunteers play in the Alliance’s work, and how can folks get involved?

We always have direct volunteer opportunities like trail work or event planning, but really what the Alliance should be, and what I hope it to be, is individuals taking personal initiative to speak out for the places they love.

What we do need help with is growing the cause; of people joining the Alliance and actually speaking up for trails and access and conservation lands and by volunteering.

There are a number of ways of supporting High Peaks Alliance, but mostly right now you need to use your voice as a megaphone, to spread our word on social media, share our email newsletters, and invite your friends to become a part of this. And then, as projects go on, we hope to hold more and more public forums and panel discussions so we can get better input. And we’ll need people to help survey the public. 

I think there’s a lot of ways to volunteer, and what we need is people who want to volunteer because of the cause, not necessarily because it’s their perfect fit, or it’s a social event. What needs to happen versus what people want to do is vastly different.

 

How do you find a balance between the interests of hikers, bikers, and snowmobilers in your efforts?

One thing we hear a lot is people appreciate their use to be considered. And that doesn’t mean all trail uses in all places. And the other thing is, there’s a common thread of people who live and play in the High Peaks who don’t only do one thing.  For instance, I don’t want a four-wheeler trail where I’m hunting. That’s obvious. If I was a birder, I wouldn’t want someone interrupting that activity. If I’m a snowmobiler, I want something different than if I’m a skier. I could be all those things, and in the end, we have enough room up in this neck of the woods to find places for everyone to find their ideal way of recreating and segmenting those.

There are some great use cases of multiple-use trails, but in reality, single-use or planned use can be the best experience for that type of thing. And so, I’ve thought about the more intensive uses staying near the towns, and the less intensive uses being more in the wild country. And you just have to go land by land. Shiloh pond was an example of everyone wanted to leave it alone the way it was, and so that lent credence to the town’s committee to make decisions, to keep it walk in, to keep it wild. But everyone who wanted a say had a say, so you didn’t have to consider and worry about all the people who weren’t at the table. You just have to work together to realize, all right, who wants to do what, and what’s the best way to pull it off. It’s just building trust and building relationships.

 

Can you share any partnerships or collaborations that have made a difference for the Alliance?

We help co-coordinate the High Peaks Initiative, a group of 16 nonprofits that all work in the Conservation Recreation space in the High Peaks region. That is roughly defined as Farmington to the border and roughly aquatic area west. If you go to the east, kind of the Kennebec River and that greater Franklin region, with a little bit of Oxford, and a little bit of Somerset, this is the region where all these organizations work. We get together to see if there are collaborative opportunities.

Some of these groups will help conserve land, and some of these groups will help maintain the trails. At the end of the day, we want to paint a picture of the High Peaks where all these trails are well maintained. The places we love are all conserved and open to the public, and the communities feel like they’ve had a voice in that process. Some of the groups are local, some of them are national, and we all bring different perspectives and niches into this work. We’re able to do a lot of work and different work, because of that collaboration.

 

What are some common myths about the High Peaks Alliance that you’d like to clear up?

We are not the Visitor Center in Carrabassett Valley. They are called Maine’s Northwestern Mountains now, and they’re the Flagstaff Area Business Alliance. They’ve done a lot of work over the years, but they used to put out a guide called Maine High Peaks. Everyone in Kingfield and Carrabassett thinks we’re Maine High Peaks, but we’re the High Peaks Alliance, we work on the actual projects. We’re not a Chamber of Commerce like that group. 

That’s one thing. And then the other thing is, in conservation, everyone thinks you want to lock up all the land, but in reality, we just want good land planning. For instance, you don’t want the condos on top of the mountain ruining the view for everyone. You don’t want to fill in the wetlands and ruin the streams and rivers for fishing and hunting. I think we have these areas that should remain wild, and then we should have these other places that get developed and allow for different opportunities for businesses to thrive. So, I think that’s a misconception as well.

 

Do you have a memorable story or experience from your work that highlights the impact of the Alliance on the community?

We built the first accessible trail in Franklin County in Farmington, and one of the people who came to our ribbon cutting was the local martial arts instructor when I was a kid. He used to be able to do backflips, and now he’s in a mobility scooter. He came and thanked us for our work because now this is the only place he can go in nature. After years of enjoying it, he’s unable to except for that accessible trail, and that’s really been a huge feeling. 

 

Lastly, what keeps you motivated to work hard for the High Peaks communities and the mission of the Alliance?

Well, I grew up here, and I got to use all this land as a child, so that was the first level. But I also realized quickly that when I was working for wildlife biologists, the people I respected the most were the ones that stuck with a specific area that they managed the longest. That led them to be the most knowledgeable, the most passionate, and the most capable land manager of that land.

Right now, I look at the High Peaks and there’s no one else doing this. It’s the most spectacular landscape in Maine, and no one’s working on conservation, and no one’s working on figuring out all these trail issues, but there’s a huge need. I grew up in the communities, too.

Today, when you drive in some of these towns, like New Portland, the post office I grew up using has someone living in it. The school I used as a kid (I was in the last eighth grade class to go to Central Elementary School) became a business and is boarded up. These things have shown that if left by the wayside, if you don’t take action, everything will get worse. I don’t want to be the generation that leaves this earth worse than I found it, and that’s what keeps driving me.