Peak Traffic

[Sherpa John]

#47918 |

I attended this years FOT48 hike by heading up to Liberty and Flume with my wife Sherpette. While on the summits of these two peaks it was visible evident the growth of this event… and the number of folks who still had no idea that the event was even taking place.

We counted about 50+ people and 7 dogs on Liberty at ONE TIME around 12:50pm Saturday. At 12:30pm I counted 50+ on the summit of Flume.

While it is no mystery that folks have always hiked to the popular Franconia Ridge.. in my opinion it might be time that the FOT48 committee take a closer look at how it does its sign ups for peak in future years. My suggestion would be to limit the number of folks who can register for a “high traffic peak” to ONE. And that person would be the flag bearer. Allowing 10+ folks to officially sign up for a peak like Liberty or Flume opens the door to encouraging higher then necessary traffic on a peak and disturbs the fruits of labor with LNT and The Alpine Steward Programs.

Just some food for thought… Great event that is really well run. You guys continue to do a magnificent job.

SJ

[Jaytrek57]

#54734

Sign ups are limited to 10 for any given peak.
FOT48 encourages LNT as evident by the standard of 10 for group size.

We also encourage the use of different trails, staggered start times, etc..

Jay

[Sherpa John]

#54735

Rit… I understand the policies and ideas you have in place currently. But if you really wanted to err on the side of lnt and lessening the impacts on certain areas… Why have a group size limit of 10 when you all ready anticipate that number to be exceeded by stragglers?

Not trying to stir a pot.. Just trying to figure out a way we can all participate in this event and be more mindful of fragile areas.

[New Hampshire]

#54736

Well, all those people are going to go wether we open it up to more or not. At least the way things are right now we can at least show some semblence of complying with proper LNT principles.

Brian

[Jaytrek57]

#54737

Yeah….

What he said.

It was a “perfect” day this past Saturday (weather wise). Of course there are going to be crowds. From my observations, there were way more people hiking that didn’t know about FOT48, then the actual number that particpated in FOT48.

……

Peace

[Chris]

#54738

John, I can definitely see your point, I struggle with the sign up process and I really don’t like when people sign up as “Tim, Sally, and our 14 kids”. I’m working on a way to make the sign ups tie into registration for the site so we can limit the multiple-people-one-spot issue. However Brian is right, we can never truly limit the number of people hiking in a group at the event.

[Sherpa John]

#54739

Chris,

Thank you for your thoughtful and open minded response. Much appreciated.

Sj[/list]

[bikehikeskifish]

#54740

We had 150 +/- on Adams and there were 40-50 people up there at any given time. Probably half of those I spoke to had heard of FOT48 and came (at least in part) because of it.

Tim

[Chris]

#54741

@Sherpa John wrote:

Chris,

Thank you for your thoughtful and open minded response. Much appreciated.

Sj

My pleasure! :beer:

[Author]

Posts