Peak crowding: Droves of hikers clog High Peaks – Times Union

“I don’t know where we’ll go,” said Marrianne Verreault of Montreal, who with a friend had planned to tackle Giant Mountain, but was shooed away from an illegal parking spot along the road. They figured they could find a spot somewhere else and take an alternate hike.

“We wanted to park at the Giant lot, but it was full,” said Sandra Leduc Thibault, who with her friend John Phillippe Claude planned to backpack into the woods and stay overnight. She was a few miles away at a parking lot near Marcy Field, a grass airstrip just outside Keene. With Montreal about two hours away, the area has long been popular with Canadian visitors. And the Columbus Day weekend coincides with Canada’s equivalent of Thanksgiving weekend.

Volunteer stewards at Marcy Field were helping with a shuttle bus that the town of Keene operates to drive hikers a few miles to The Garden, another perpetually full parking lot that leads to the John’s Brook Trail, which accesses a number of mountain trails. Essex County also ran a shuttle between Lake Placid and Wilmington, where Whiteface ski center is located.

“We’ve got food, water and flashlights,” said Magali Serrano of New Brunswick, N.J. Along with three friends, Serrano had driven up from New Jersey the previous night — but got stuck in the mud going to their rented cabin in Oswegatchie, which turned out to be two hours away.

They were among the scores of hikers who at midday formed a procession up the Adirondack Loj road, parking in spots where there were no obvious prohibitions or where someone had just pulled out. It was a half-hour hike just to reach the trails from some spots; several people  were hitchhiking.

Maybe it was the cloudless weather, but no one was complaining about the crowds.

“People on the trail really don’t seem to mind,” said Scott van Laer, a state forest ranger who is also a representative for his union. He has been outspoken about the need for more rangers, especially to help patrol the backcountry and rescue hikers who get lost or injured.

Indeed, those who look after the woods and roads say the heavy use of the High Peaks area has hit a tipping point, and something needs to be done. Precisely what that might be depends on who you talk to.

“It’s a good problem to have, but it is taking its toll ecologically,” said John Sheehan, spokesman for the Adirondack Council. Erosion of the trails is a problem as are sanitation issues, with reports of human waste and toilet paper being seen along some trails.

“The highest-use levels go beyond what I think is sustainable,” said Neil Woodworth, executive director of the Adirondack Mountain Club.

Woodworth and others have also observed a change in the nature of hikers. Thanks in part to meet-ups facilitated by social media, there are more groups of people. And the adventure-sport craze has brought in people who view the mountains as an athletic challenge rather than a wilderness experience, with people competing to see how many peaks they can summit in a day.

On the other hand, some visitors see the peaks as a party spot — there have been reports of hikers lugging beer kegs to the mountaintops.

There also are more worries about inexperienced or poorly prepared hikers.

The 46er stewards on Columbus Day weekend had set up a table at the entrance to Cascade trail. People could look at a map or photograph it with their phones. Volunteers also handed out trash and dog waste bags, urging visitors to carry out their garbage.

“You want to stay together as a group,” a volunteer told a family of five — parents and three pre-teens, all in sneakers — as they entered the Cascade Mountain trail. Earlier in the day, they had seen a child with flip-flops, a not uncommon occurrence despite the rocky, muddy trail.

While they can’t keep people off the trail, the volunteers advise them to bring water, a jacket and other essentials. And they urge them to stay on the trail to prevent further erosion.

“Cascade gets the inexperienced hikers,” said Fran Shumway, a 46er volunteer steward organizer.

By midday at Cascade, people were coming in waves. The stewards would issue some gentle warnings about the trail’s steepness. Roughly a third of hikers turn around before completing the 2.5-mile trek to the top, they estimate. Someone had left a debit card near the wooden hutch where people are supposed to sign in before ascending the trail.

All of this has revived discussions about whether there should be a permit system to limit the number of people entering a trail on any given day.

The idea was discussed in the early 1970s as the current land-use plans for the Adirondack Forest Preserve were being developed. Permits are required at some popular National Park locations such as Half Dome in Yosemite Park and Mount Whitney, both in California.

One way to do that, said Sheehan, could be through parking permits. That way if someone didn’t get a parking permit, they might not come to the area in the first place. Charging for permits could be problematic, though, since the park is public land.

The idea of permits, though, may not go over with local business owners who depend on visitors for their livelihood.

Wilson, the Keene supervisor, believes one answer could be more parking lots in some of the unused spots along Route 73, such as its intersection with Route 9 just south of town.

Another approach, currently used by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, calls for promoting alternate hiking routes on trails or lesser-known mountains. Some of them may be a bit smaller than Mount Marcy or Cascade, but can still provide an enjoyable day outdoors — while beating the crowds.

All of the proposals to alleviate or ease the crowding face challenges and complications.

A permit system would be politically contentious and unpopular for many visitors and locals. Bigger parking lots would butt up against the “forever wild” restrictions on clearing trees, requiring lengthy review and possibly waivers — all likely sources of contention. Steering people to other spots is difficult, especially given the  social media attention lavished on the High Peaks. Facebook and Instagram are hard to compete with.

For, now Adirondackers will continue to plan for the busy weekends as the season winds down.

Wilson and other Keene Town Board members helped direct traffic and ensure the shuttle bus was running smoothly. There’s effort and expense involved, but they don’t feel like they can wait for policymakers to devise a permanent solution.

That’s why the town took the initiative this season and rented $10,000 worth of portable toilets near parking lots.

“That’s a boring but essential part of this,” Wilson said.

rkarlin@timesunion.com (518) 454-5758 @RickKarlinTU