The current federal budget crisis means many damaged trails in the White Mountains won’t be repaired this year, according to the Appalachian Mountain Club.
Faced with cuts and uncertainty over grants they depend on to hire work crews, AMC officials say they’ve been left to figure out what trail work they can bypass this year, which, they say, would leave the trails at risk for unmanageable danger.
According to the AMC, while trail visits have increased 250 percent nationally since 1980, the dollars spent per mile of trail have decreased by 34 percent during that period, and only a third of trails are now maintained to accepted standards. A decade ago, AMC would have had a trail crew of 36 people. This year, they say, they’ll likely have 12. (READ MORE)