High Peaks Wilderness Visitor Use Management
By Dave Gibson
In 2019, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) sponsored a well-attended High Peaks Stakeholder Meeting in Keene Valley. All concluded that better data was needed to inform management decisions for this Wilderness. Questions posed to stakeholders that day included: “how many people are using the trails? When are they using trails? Which trails and trailheads? What is the parking capacity? How much use can the trails sustain? How many of us can the summits accommodate?”
DEC has now delivered answers to some of these key questions via consultants trained in the Visitor Use Management (VUM) framework. This Pilot Project report provides the first measured correlation between High Peaks Wilderness perimeter access and parking, and interior crowding on trails and summits like Mts. Marcy, Algonquin, and Cascade – data that has long been identified as needed by the 1999 High Peaks Unit Management Plan.
The consultants competently facilitated stakeholder input, examined goal setting, impact analysis, desired conditions, related indicators, thresholds, and management recommendations for improving recreational safety and visitor satisfaction in parts of the eastern High Peaks Wilderness. They did this taking into account foundational guidelines for management of Wilderness areas.
However, the Project’s final VUM assessment is also seriously incomplete in several important ways which we will describe.
See our full comment letter here: High Peaks comments to NYS DEC