Dear High Peaks Strategic Planning Advisory Group:

We appreciate the opportunity to provide input regarding issues related to managing use in the High Peaks Region and what might be done to address these issues. The Access the Adirondacks Alliance (AtAA) has a number of suggestions:

1. POLICIES MUST BE WELCOMING TO ALL VISITORS. Recreationists who chose to visit the Adirondack Park are our customers. Given the tenor of the term "Over Use", AtAA is very concerned new policies may be negative. So far, emergency measures to deal with safety issues have included the issuing of parking tickets and the establishment of a trail head shuttle system. While such actions may be necessary in the short term, neither of these actions can be perceived as welcoming or customer friendly. Parking tickets are negative on their face and give this message: "come visit our most attractive Park features and we will give you a ticket - keep away, we really don't want you here". Shuttle services are notoriously inefficient compared to trail head parking and send a message: "you are our customer but your needs really aren't important to us". Picture a car load of hikers waiting hours for a shuttle. Worse yet, picture a car load of customers dropped at the trail head realizing they forgot their hiking poles, their first aid pack or their food. Will they ever come back? Any new policy which either uses enforcement, or which is customer unfriendly, should be deleted from this planning exercise. The promise of the Adirondack Park and the many public land acquisitions over the decades is to be accessible and convenient to the many millions of people within a one day drive. Further, the economy and stability of the communities providing services for visitors, if it is to be recreation based economy, depends upon more people visiting the high peaks, and all other areas of the Park, not fewer.

2. HIGH PEAKS OVER USE: We often compare the Adirondack Park to the National Parks west of the Mississippi River, claiming this Park is bigger and better. If we try to limit the use of the High Peaks it is like trying to limit visitors to Old Faithful in Yellowstone. The High Peaks is the single biggest draw of the Adirondack Park. This will not change. Recreationists come to the Park to hike the highest peaks in the state. We should embrace this wonderful geologic feature and its attractiveness to visitors. Trying to reroute visitors to other areas of the Park is a policy that has not been successful in the past and will not be successful in the future. Caroga Lake, the Essex Chain or Whitney Park cannot compare to the High Peaks, as much as we might feel they deserve the visiting recreationists' attention. The AtAA strongly believes all parts of the Park should be advertised, but the recreationists should be allowed to choose for themselves which features they wish to visit. Investments in infrastructure, including trails and parking lots, should then be proportional to their popularity. Trying to control where visiting recreationists recreate in the Park is a policy doomed to failure.

3. PARKING LOTS AND TRAILS: For a long time, the unwritten policy of the Park has been to limit use by keeping parking lots, hiking trails, and other recreational trails such as snowmobile trails, minimalistic in size. Single lane if you will. This was a way of limiting use without issuing tickets. In addition, hiking trails were intentionally made longer by limiting drive in access. It is time for these passive aggressive anti-use measures to be abandoned. Trails should be designed to handle the use indicated by trail head hiker records. Trails seeing hundreds of hikers per day should be wider than trails servicing only a handful of hikers every other day. Much like a dam is sized for peak flood stage, trails should be designed and built to handle peak hiker use. Much like the highway system, trails need to be engineered to handle the load and the traffic with some trails being main streets and others being alleys. In addition, the AtAA believes heavy use trails should offer picnic sites and restrooms along the way. The same "designed for use" theory applies to parking lots. Trail head sign in sheets will give a strong indication of peak use and the number of parking spaces needed. To make this feasible, all Forest Preserve trails and Trail head Parking Lots (not just those in the high peaks and not just those used primarily for hiking) should be classified Intensive Use in the State Land Master Plan. It is contradictory to classify a hiking trail as wilderness knowing hundreds of people will be using it on a day in day out basis during the summer months. It is also contradictory to classify a parking lot as wilderness or wild forest when it is so obviously not. Changing the classification to Intensive use allows trail and parking infrastructures to fit the use we are seeing. The change would affect very few acres in comparison to the millions of acres of Forest Preserve. This recommendation applies to all Trails whether used for hiking, horseback riding, biking or snowmobiling. It is long past time NYS invests in updating the infrastructure needed by the customers visiting the Adirondack Park. Considering this is the Empire State, our Park infrastructure is embarrassingly near the bottom when compared to Parks in the other states and certainly when compared to National Parks.

4. STUDIES AND TRAIL CZARS: The AtAA believes proposals for more studies are unnecessary. Uses of Park infrastructure are well known and trail use records provide all the information needed to design and engineer adequate infrastructure. We also believe "Trail Czars" to be anti-visitor by definition. Czars controlling use, really, is this China or Russia? Enforcing logical regulations designed to protect the environment such as littering makes sense. Adding enforcement positions to limit use is antithetical to the concept of a Park where recreation is the primary economic driver.

5. SCOPE OF THE ADVISORY GROUP IS TOO SMALL: The AtAA believes trail use throughout the Park on Forest Preserve lands needs to be addressed. Inadequate parking, highway crossing signage and infrastructure, trail erosion and improperly engineered trails are issues throughout the Park. As examples: 1) parking for river rafting buses and personal vehicles in North River is woefully inadequate. 2) Pedestrian Crossing signs and flashing lights for the OK Slip falls hiking trail is non-existent (55 mph speed zone). 3) Snowmobile trail highway crossing signs are either non-existent or inadequate. 4) Horse trailer parking is inadequate and not sized to handle the equipment.

The Advisory Committee does not adequately represent all the constituent groups affected by recreational use in the Adirondack Park. The AtAA would like to be sure that the sporting community, recreational users and business interests are all heard from in this process.

6. SUMMARY:

a. ALL RECOMMENDATIONS SHOULD BE VISITOR FRIENDLY AND STRIVE TO INCREASE, NOT REDISTRIBUTE, RECREATION IN THE FOREST PRESERVE.

b. ALL FORMS OF RECREATION SHOULD BE ADDRESSED BY THE ADVISORY GROUP, NOT JUST HIKING

c. TRAILS, PARKING LOTS AND OTHER RECREATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE ON THE FOREST PRESERVE SHOULD BE CLASSIFIED INTENSIVE USE.

d. TRAILS, PARKING LOTS AND OTHER RECREATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE SHOULD BE DESIGNED TO MEET USE VOLUMES AND ENGINEERED ACCORDINGLY, WITH WIDER TRAILS AND BIGGER PARKING LOTS WHERE USE SO DICTATES.

e. TOILET FACILITES SHOULD BE PROVIDED TO PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT AND TO SERVE RECREATIONISTS WHERE LARGE VOLUME USE SO DICTATES ON TRAILS AND PARKING LOTS.

f. MORE STUDIES ARE EXPENSIVE AND NOT NEEDED

g. NEW POSITIONS SUGGESTED SUCH AS "TRAIL CZARS" ARE DUPLICATORY

Thank you for the opportunity to comment. The AtAA will continue to monitor and review the suggested actions of the Advisory Committee and would be willing to further explain the comments stated in this communication.

Sincerely,
Roger Dziengeleski
AtAA Steering Committee Chair

Access the Adirondacks Alliance
For Immediate Release: 10/24/19
Contact: Roger Dziengeleski
roger_dziengeleski@yahoo.com
Phone: 518-742-9845

Court of Appeals Decision is Big Win for Recreational Access

Access the Adirondacks Alliance, a coalition of Conservation, Recreation, Local Government, Businesses and Sportsmen's Groups including the 70,000 member-strong New York State Snowmobile Association is pleased that the New York State Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision, approved the use of the Chain Lakes Road as a snowmobile route.

This section of road near Indian Lake, NY, has been contested in a lawsuit that was brought by Adirondack Wild challenging the DEC approval of the use, and claiming that the trail would violate state law, specifically the APA Master Plan and the Wild, Scenic and Recreational Rivers Act. In an Opinion issued Tuesday 10/22/9, New York’s highest state court rejected the claim and ruled in favor of the DEC.

The Court of Appeals Opinion held that the snowmobile trail is permitted in that location because it is the continuation of a use pre-existing the enactment of the Rivers Act. The Appeals Court also rejected Adirondack Wild’s claim that the Adirondack State Land Master Plan trumps the Rivers Act and did not reach the question of whether the Master Plan is even a "law."

A copy of the Court of Appeal's Opinion is available as Decision No. 69 at the following link: https://www.nycourts.gov/ctapps/Decisions/2019/Oct19/October19.html

Access the Adirondacks Alliance believes all outdoor open space recreational uses should be allowed in the Forest Preserve, as defined in the State Land Master Plan. Three million acres is enough to accommodate all uses without negatively impacting the ecosystem. The taxpayers of the State of New York paid to purchase these lands with the promise they would be open for public recreation and enjoyment, we are glad to see this decision as it reinforces our mission to ensure reasonable and legal access to public lands.

There are 45 diverse groups currently supporting the Access the Adirondacks Alliance they are listed on our website.

Access the Adirondacks Alliance (AtAA) was formed to advocate and support reasonable access to the Forest Preserve by people of all ages and abilities. We invite you to help our efforts by joining the Alliance and by contacting Governor Cuomo and your elected legislators to let them know you support equal and reasonable access to all lands owned by the people of New York State. You can learn more at our website www.AccessAdk.com or follow and like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/accessadk.

Access the Adirondacks Alliance
For Immediate Release: 9/12/19
Contact: Roger Dziengeleski
roger_dziengeleski@yahoo.com

Tree Cutting Court Decision Threatens All Adirondack Recreation

Access the Adirondacks Alliance, a coalition of Conservation, Recreation, Local Government, Businesses and Sportsmen's Groups including the 60,000 member-strong New York State Snowmobile Association is extremely concerned about a recent ruling by the New York State Appellate Court. The court's decision defining all trees, no matter how small as timber has provided a mechanism to successfully bring lawsuits that could potentially end all recreational activity in the Forest Preserve.

The court ruling found that trees, no matter how small, should not be removed to any substantial extent or to any material degree from the forest Preserve. While this case was focused specifically on Snowmobile Trail construction, the decision has prompted DEC to stop most trail maintenance and construction, pending an appeal of this court decision. This DEC decision affects trail construction or maintenance on the Forest Preserve regardless of use, including hiking, biking equestrian and all other trails!

This ruling could set the stage for even more legal challenges and potentially impact a wide range of non-trail uses of the Forest Preserve. It is conceivable a lawsuit could be brought from a group opposed to hunting, on the grounds that thousands of hunters walking through the Forest Preserve results in the substantial and material destruction of seedlings. The combined footfalls of thousands of hunters in a single season could impact more seedlings than those impacted by the snowmobile trail construction halted by the recent Appellate court ruling. While this may seem an extreme example, the recent decision has over-turned decades of standing with respect to tree cutting in the Forest Preserve so anything is possible. A similar argument could be made to ban hiking in most areas just think how that would be received. In the court case it was estimated that 25,000 "trees" would be destroyed, although no formal, independent, scientific survey was ever presented as evidence!

Access the Adirondacks Alliance believes all outdoor open space recreational uses should be allowed in the Forest Preserve, as defined in the State Land Master Plan. Three million acres is enough to accommodate all uses without impacting the forest ecosystem. The taxpayers of the State of New York paid to purchase these lands with the promise they would be open for public recreation and enjoyment.

The recent snowmobile trail lawsuit and the subsequent ruling has much more to do with control, than reflecting a true concern for the ecosystem or trees. At the end of the day, all recreational uses have an impact, but none of those uses are large enough to negatively impact 3,000,000 acres of Forest Preserve, Substantially or Materially. The members of the Access the Adirondacks Alliance support the NYS DEC appeal and feel a positive ruling in their favor, will help preserve the public's right to utilize the forest Preserve, not just a few special interest groups.

There are 45 diverse groups currently supporting the Access the Adirondacks Alliance they are listed on our website.

Access the Adirondacks Alliance (AtAA) was formed to advocate and support reasonable access to the Forest Preserve by people of all ages and abilities. We invite you to help our efforts by joining the Alliance and by contacting Governor Cuomo and your elected legislators to let them know you support equal and reasonable access to all lands owned by the people of New York State. You can learn more at our website www.AccessAdk.com or follow and like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/accessadk.