Illegal ATV Trail on Section of Appalachian Trail in North Carolina
By Rocky Thompson on February 28th, 2013
Trail maintenance volunteers at the Max Patch mountain bald on the AT at the Carolina/Tennessee border arrived to find that some ATV riders had knocked down fences and carved paths and ruts along a section of trail.
Dwayne Stutzman, one of three volunteers who adopted this A.T. section, says, “In almost 20 years as a volunteer A. T. maintainer at Max Patch, I’ve never seen such brazen, senseless vandalism. This is the first time we’ve had a bad situation up there. The ruts were almost five inches deep, with lots of mud.”
As a cyclist I can, on some level, empathize with the frustration of national parks closing their land to your sport, but outlaw destruction seldom works. The parks department has no idea who did it, though from now on their guard will be up. I suspect these ATV riders will also eventually post some photos or helmet-cam footage to Facebook, at which point authorities will come knocking on their doors. You can always rely on the stupidity of strangers.
Tags: appalachian trail