Welch Mountain Summit Steward by Dick Fortin
Sandwich Range Journal, Summer 1991

As I sit here at the Welch House looking north to Welch and Dickey, watching the cloud cover come and go, engulfing the peaks and then moments later lifting away, each time giving me a new glimpse, I find myself flashing back to the work that has been done and all the people I've met as Welch's Summit Steward.

Starting in June with most of my time concentrated on physical changes that needed to be done on the ledge area, I did not realize the emotional changes that would be taking place in me. I guess that is what stewardship is all about: caring.

The program began with observation time, watching where hikers were going, whether they followed the trail or were drawn-off to other areas and whether the existing trail at the ledge area was working or not. After two days it became obvious where the focus of my work would be.

I delineated a zone that we called the 'revegetation area, an area of high priority that needed protection from our hiking boots. I placed brush around that zone with hopes that hikers would stay out of it. I blocked old bootleg trails with two purposes in mind. The first was to ensure that everyone would use the same trail, the second was to encourage hikers to pass by the revegetation and the Steward, and thereby become aware of Welch' salpine recovery project.

One rainy afternoon was all that was needed to see what was happening to the remaining islands of vegetation. They were being undermined and the material on the outside edges was being carried off downhill. ROCKS! We needed rocks to encircle the islands to stop that movement as well as to help hikers realize something was going on there, that maybe we should walk around them and not through them. We decided to haul rock in from other forested areas below rather than randomly collect them in the other ledge area because the last thing we wanted to do was to remove any items crucial to the integrity of the other zones. Thanks to the ambitious Sandwich Range Crew who spent a day lugging rock, we were able collect a large pile of rocks. The effort did not stop there. Upon return a few days later the pile was gone! To our surprise and gratitude, someone who must have read our signs at the revegetation area and realized the purpose of the rock pile, went ahead and laid them all out! I guess that is what you could call shared stewardship.

So what now? More rocks! And some documentation as we begin to photograph work that has been done, measure the islands, and identify the plant communities within the islands, but mostly more conversations. The key element here is to inform as many hikers of what is being done and why, and to hope there can be much more shared stewardship.

introduction

Welch Mountain Summit Steward, Dick Fortin, Summer 1991

Wilderness: What it is and How to Keep it, George Zink, Summer 1991

Trail Tending: Tradition, Ethics and Esthetics, Nat Scrimshaw, Summer 1991