Final stretch: $200,000 more to go!

We are very excited to report that generous supporters have contributed 89 percent of the $1.8 million needed to buy and protect four properties on or near Mt. Major! 

Thank you to Paul and Sandra Montrone of the Penates Foundation of Hampton for providing a recent $50,000 grant through our partner, Lakes Region Conservation Trust. 

We must now raise the final $200,000 to protect a New Hampshire treasure and to guarantee continued public access to the extensive trails system in the Belknap Range. Every donation, big or small, will help us protect New Hampshire's scenic beauty for people and wildlife, so please consider helping today! Thank you.

LCHIP Award Lifts Campaign to $1.4 Million!

This aerial shows the Mt. Major summit in the foreground
 and a spectacular autumn view of  Lake Winnipesaukee.
Photo by Bill Hemmel.

Bafflin Foundation Adds $50,000 

It's a great week for the Everybody Hikes Mt. Major Campaign! The Land and Community Heritage Investment Program (LCHIP) announced today that it will provide $340,000 for the campaign, matching the combined donations of the towns of Gilford and Alton. And the Bafflin Foundation, based in Providence, R.I., is providing a $50,000 grant. These two new grants bring the fundraising total to $1.4 million, leaving $400,000 to go.

Anonymous Family Foundation Donates $30K

An anonymous family foundation has donated $30,000 toward the Mt. Major/Belknaps campaign. The family has been hiking in New Hampshire for generations, and they are very familiar with the Belknaps Range and Mt. Major trails. They also understand how much trail maintenance is needed for this popular hiking area, and that it is dependent on the Forest Society and Lakes Region Conservation Trust's ability to acquire ownership and permanent protection of the properties and the trails.

Another $20K Closer Thanks to the Moose Plate Program

When you pass someone with the New Hampshire Moose license plate on their car or truck, give them a wave and a thank you for supporting land conservation and cultural heritage around the state. Today we learned that the NH State Conservation Committee granted $20,000 toward the Everybody Hikes Mount Major campaign, bringing us that much closer to our goal of protecting key parcels in the Belknap Mountain Range.

For more information about the Moose Plate program, visit www.mooseplate.com/.

$25,000 Grant, Grassroots Support Strengthen the Everybody Hikes Mt. Major Campaign

 

Volunteers Rachel French and Betsy Kelly welcome hikers at the Mt. Major trailhead.

The S.L. Gimbel Foundation has awarded a $25,000 grant to the campaign to purchase and protect 950 acres in the Belknap Range. This new grant brings the total raised for the project to more than $800,000, leaving $1 million more to go. More than 1,100 individual donors have stepped up to help the campaign so far. Such a broad base of support is largely thanks to the tremendously dedicated volunteers from the Belknap Range Conservation Coalition who have shared the project with hikers and collected donations at the Mt. Major trailhead for the past several months.

Hundreds of hours of volunteer effort went into the Belknap Range Trails map.

It's also thanks to the popularity of the weatherproof map of the Belknap Range trails that donors of $50 or more receive as a "thank you" gift. Thank you to mapmaker Weldon Bosworth and volunteer GPS-ers Rick Andrews, Steve Zimmer and others from the BRCC and the Belknap Range Trail Tenders for providing this great incentive!

$187,000 Grant Boosts Mt Major/Belknaps Campaign

With less than two months until the purchase deadline, the Open Space Institute has awarded a $187,000 grant to the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, leaving the Society and its partner the Lakes Region Conservation Trust about $1 million to raise for their “Everybody Hikes Mt. Major” campaign, an effort to protect 950 acres in the Belknap Mountains.

The grant is part of OSI’s $6 million “Resilient Landscapes Initiative,” which is funded with a lead grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. The initiative helps land trusts and public agencies from Maine to West Virginia target their conservation efforts toward the places most likely to be resilient to a changing climate. Based on a body of research conducted over more than a decade by The Nature Conservancy (TNC), OSI has identified four regions that are “best bets” in an uncertain time.

The Belknap Range, located southwest of Lake Winnipesaukee in Alton, Gilford, Gilmanton and Belmont, with its wealth of unfragmented forests and wetlands, is within one of these high priority areas – the New Hampshire and Maine forests.

“This grant really highlights what we know and love about Mt. Major and the Belknap Range,” said Jane Difley, Forest Society president/forester. “This is one of New Hampshire’s very special places, not only valuable to people for  hiking, snowmobiling, hunting, fishing and skiing, but also valuable as habitat to a broad range of animals and plants.”

“We hope OSI’s identification of the Belknaps as ecologically important from a climate change perspective will encourage others to come forward and support our efforts to permanently protect 950 acres of it in the Everybody Hikes Mt. Major campaign,” said Don Berry, LRCT president.

OSI’s Executive Vice President for Conservation Capital and Research Peter Howell said “although scientists cannot predict precisely how and when the climate will change nor just how species will respond to those changes, TNC’s research suggest that it’s critical to conserve the most resilient places—lands with varied topography, abundant wetlands and ones that are unfragmented by development and roads. These resilient places allow wildlife to move and ecological processes to continue.”

OSI’s analysis shows that the Belknap Mountains contains several key characteristics that will likely support a broad diversity of life, even as the climate warms. The Belknaps contain many different land forms  – from rocky slopes and steep ravines to vernal pools and wetlands – that afford plants and animals many options. With more habitats available, the chances are greater that wildlife will be able to find refuge from temperature extremes. At over 30,000 acres, the Belknaps are also large enough for animals such as bear, bobcat, snowshoe hare and moose to access this diversity of habitats.

Including the OSI grant, The Forest Society and the Lakes Region Conservation Trust have raised $762,000 of the $1.8 million needed by Dec. 1 to buy the four properties in the Everybody Hikes Mt. Major campaign.

For more information about the campaign, go to www.forestsociety.org. For more information about the Resilient Landscapes Initiative, go to www.osiny.org

Founded in 1901, the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests is the state’s oldest and largest non-profit land conservation organization. Supported by 10,000 families and businesses, the Forest Society’s mission is to perpetuate the state’s forests by promoting land conservation and sustainable forestry. The organization owns 50,000 conserved acres of land in New Hampshire and holds conservation easements on another 115,000 acres.

The Lakes Region Conservation Trust was founded in 1979 to conserve the natural heritage of New Hampshire's Lakes Region.  LRCT's land acquisition and stewardship work preserves community character, conserves critical wildlife habitat and diverse ecosystems, protects natural landmarks and scenic landscapes, and provides outdoor recreation opportunities for people of all ages.  LRCT has conserved more than 120 properties totaling over 22,000 acres, encompassing many of the special places that define this unique and spectacular part of New England.

Hiking Mt. Major

"I find myself itching to get back up Mt. Major. Why is that? I have a State Park right in my backyard that I hike many times a week. It’s home for me and I know many of its paths intimately. I rarely ever come upon other people on my hikes. It’s a peaceful place for me to walk, think, and photograph undisturbed. Mt. Major’s trails on the other hand are over used and over crowded. I have to say, though, vistas can be intoxicating, and Mt. Major has one of the best I’ve seen around. There’s also camaraderie in the mountain. Locals hike it over and over and more come from far away to enjoy its trails. Sometimes its nice not to be Alone in the Woods. The crowds at the summit of Mt. Major are a testament to our culture’s deep appreciation of the outdoors. How important it is to keep these often distant concepts of “nature” and “landscape” close to our hearts and minds… and then to work through their meanings as we move our bodies through a mountain trail. " - Hiking Mount Major

Read More from Forest Society volunteer Emily Lord, who wrote a blog post chronicling observations and photographs from her recent hike with SPNHF staff and members last Saturday. It was an amazingly warm and beautiful September day, perfect for a meandering hike up one of NH's most popular mountains!