Read on for the full August Executive Update. John

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1 The new Medawisla has been open for almost two months now, and guests reactions to the new amenities including cabins with private baths; kayaks, canoes, and stand-up paddle boards for use on Second Roach Pond; and a growing network of hiking, skiing, and mountain biking trails have been absolutely fantastic. Media coverage of our newest Maine Wilderness Lodge has been strong. I encourage you to check out the great story that appeared on the highly watched Bill Green s Maine on Portland s WCSH-6 TV. The host called Medawisla the most beautiful backcountry eco-lodge I ve ever seen. Be sure to gear up for your next outdoor adventure with the new, 30 th edition of the AMC White Mountain Guide, which is hot off the press. The 30 th edition has been thoroughly updated and features descriptions of more than 500 trails as well as six pull-out topographic maps. The guide is an essential item of trip-planning gear when hiking in the Whites. Also new from AMC Books is AMC s Real Trail Meals, a great, new, backcountry cookbook crammed with recipes for delicious meals to keep you well-fed and well-fueled when hiking and camping. AMC s 140+ years of conservation leadership is needed now than ever before. We are pleased to announce that AMC s taken the lead role in the national effort to permanently fund the Land Water and Conservation Fund (LWCF). Through Outdoors America, we will be leading the 1,300- member national coalition to permanently fund LWCF. A critically important program to - among other objectives - safeguard America s stunning natural spaces. We ve been packing up boxes as we look forward to our move to AMC s new headquarters at 10 City Square in Charlestown. The transition to the new, more functional space is set to take place in a matter of days. Our Youth Opportunities Program has already made the move to their new space on Spice Street just a 20 min walk from City Square (see photo on left). I hope you have had many opportunities to get outdoors this summer. I know the summer has been incredibly busy and productive. See below for several of the season s AMC success stories. Thank you for your continued support, good wishes as we take this historic move to our new headquarters and ongoing participation in the outdoors and conservation stewardship. Read on for the full August Executive Update. John

2 In July, the Stephen & Betsy Corman AMC Harriman Outdoor Center welcomed President s Society members for a second annual outdoor adventure weekend, where participants enjoyed hiking, paddling, and cycling, in addition to swimming, lakeside yoga, meditation, and more during a long weekend at the serene and picturesque camp. Experience the beauty of the camp yourself at our Farm to Fork dinner, a charitable evening of fine wine, local food, and pleasant camaraderie, being held on September 28. Contact Barbara Evans at (646) or bevans@outdoors.org with questions. Do you want to make an impact on outdoor recreation, environmental education, and conservation long after your lifetime? Add AMC to your will! Join Summit Trust, a community of donors whose support for AMC is made possible through planned giving. Explore the possibilities today by talking with Stephanie Schiele, director of development operations, by phone at (617) or sschiele@outdoors.org.

3 Are you 70 ½ or older? Consider making a gift through a charitable IRA rollover or qualified charitable distribution (QCD). Charitably minded taxpayers have enthusiastically embraced the IRA charitable rollover as an opportunity to transfer gifts of all sizes, up to $100,000, each year to charity without it being treated as a taxable distribution. This can be especially helpful if you anticipate not needing your required minimum distribution for income. If you would like to make a qualifying transfer, contact your IRA administrator and instruct that person to transfer funds to the charity/charities that you designate. Contact Stephanie Schiele at sschiele@outdoors.org or (617) for more information. Look for more upcoming adventures including a long weekend at the new Medawisla Wilderness Lodge and Cabins in Maine on For more information on these trips and how you can join, or become more involved with the President s Society, contact Nikki Resor at nresor@outdoors.org or (617) AMC s mission-driven work of helping families get outdoors is readily evident at the height of the summer season at our huts and lodges. Families can choose their own adventure, whether they prefer to get out on their own, or opt for a guided, or custom guided trip. Recent testimonials speak for themselves. For instance: The highlight was seeing my kids make new friends so quickly and enjoying times with the younger

4 ones loved the hikes and learning session. Just Perfect! Thanks for an amazing time! Adult participants have also enjoyed bucket-list hut-to-hut trips, thanks to our talented guides. The guides were friendly, thoughtful, patient, knowledgeable, and fun to be with for three days! wrote a recent participant. They set a great pace on the trail and a positive tone in our group. They knew just when and where to stop to take a break, and how to keep the group together. They had an excellent rapport with each other, which certainly had a positive impact on the group. The adventure continues this Fall throughout AMC s huts and lodges. Huts and lodges also serve as summer venues for more flexible activities at the end of a day s adventure. Painter Ryan Brown served as the Highland Center s artist-in-residence in mid-july, and author and naturalist Ralph Pope provided a Pinkham evening presentation on his new book and an interpretive walk focusing on mosses to overnight guests and local community members. More than 8,000 guests have enjoyed nightly hut naturalist programs since the start of the summer on such topics as Green Technology Hut Systems, The Secret Lives of Alpine Plants, and Tips on How Not to Die in the Mountains. In addition, 9,000 participants have been reached with astronomy presentations through roadside lodges and Franconia Notch State Park and that tally was taken before the August 21 solar eclipse event! AMC s Junior Naturalist program has engaged intrepid outdoor explorers through huts and lodges since On average, 1,100 Junior Naturalists are welcomed into the ranks each year by diligently completing the onsite activity books and being honored with renditions of Pomp and Circumstance by generations of hut croos. Since that founding year, 14,200 patches have been awarded to young hikers as they become the stewards of the future. New for 2017, and in recognition of young repeat visitors to Zealand, Greenleaf, and Lonesome, staff naturalists developed innovative inserts that allow deeper learning about the surrounding environment. Guests visiting the new Medawisla Lodge and Cabins during its first two months have been wowed by the variety of accommodations offered, the large number of recreational options on land and water, and the spectacular setting on Second Roach Pond, all of which have received multiple thumbs up. A knock-your-socks-off feature is found on the lodge s upstairs deck,

5 where spruce corner posts harvested from our Maine property feature carvings of loons by local artist, Josh Landry. (One carving is shown above.) The carvings were a gift of E.W. Littlefield & Sons, Inc.; C.B. Mason; East Road Electric; Trafton s Plumbing & Heating; and Hammond Lumber Company, contractors and suppliers who worked on the Medawisla project, and we are extremely grateful. We have started work on the trail up Baker Mountain, and expect to have the corridor cut by late fall. Finish work is set for next season. Crews have also been upgrading existing trails. And this year s five planned aquatic habitat improvement projects are complete, resulting in an additional 4.5 miles of trout stream habitat opened. We worked with the Natural Resources Conservation Service on four of those projects and completed one on our own. The work entails removing culverts that were impeding fish passage. Over the past seven years, we have opened 38 miles of stream habitat. multi-day wilderness program. A Mountain Classroom based its fourth annual Piscataquis County Soil and Water Conservation District Teen Wilderness Expedition at Medawisla this summer. Eighteen youth between the ages of 12 and 16 hiked up Number Four Mountain, paddled on Second Roach Pond (above), and enjoyed swimming and campfires. Attesting to the popularity of this program, seven out of 18 returned from last year s program with one girl on her third year attending the Using AMC s Diversity Innovations Fund, Maine Woods Initiative and A Mountain Classroom staff collaborated to promote and lead the first Maine Teen Canoe trip. Four participants, aged 12 to 16, enjoyed a six-day trip on the Roach Ponds. The group had a great time in the Maine Woods and learned paddle strokes, fly fishing techniques, and camping skills. The trip was comprised of two youth from the Moosehead Lake Region and two from other parts of the state, and it met its goal of bringing youth from around the state to get to know each other and the wonderful Maine Woods.

6 Once again, AMC has partnered with New Hampshire s Jobs for America s Graduates (NH-JAG) and worked for eight weeks with students enrolled in the program at two New Hampshire high schools. JAG is aimed at empowering youth to attain personal success in school, work and life. Through this unique partnership, AMC provides staff leadership, tools, and training for students employed through the JAG summer program. Students gain trail work and job site skills, as well as a broader introduction to career opportunities in land management and conservation. Six students from Berlin High School and five from Woodsville High School performed such work as building rock steps and bog bridges, clearing blow-downs, and maintaining drainage structures on community trails and in the White Mountain National Forest. The Woodsville crew also gave an excellent presentation to the Caswell Family Foundation, which has provided a three-year grant to support the AMC/NH-JAG partnership. In Southern New England, our Teen Trail Crews and AMC s Roving Contract Crew (RCC) completed the upper leg on Mt. Prospect. Two staircases are completed (one new construction, one repair and replace). The

7 project included multiple crush pads, one retaining wall with crush n fill, and two sections of tread cut in. The old portion of the trail is brushed in and the new route is open for use. This has been a multiyear effort on Mt. Prospect, a heavily used section of the Appalachian Trail in Massachusetts. We just received funding through a Massachusetts Recreational Trail Program (MA-RTP) grant starting in 2018 that will support seven weeks of Teen Trail Crew and several weeks of AMC s RCC professional crew to finish the work on Mt Prospect. Also in Southern New England, our Teen Trail Crews worked in partnership with the New England National Scenic Trail (NET) to complete an extensive trail relocation of the NET in Westfield, Mass. Teen Trail Crews worked to cut sidehill trail tread with several switchbacks, following the contours, and closed off a very steep and slippery section of the NET. The trail is now far more enjoyable to hike on and is much more sustainable than the original steep grade. The first-ever full week (Tuesday-Friday) of trail work with the AMC Bay Circuit Trail (BCT) and the Green Team (above) finished successfully on July 21. The crew began tread improvements on a section of the BCT in Andover recently conserved by land trust, AVIS. The crew began sidehilling and setting a lumber retaining wall where the trail traverses a steep sideslope. The second week of crew picked up where Crew 1 left off and completed work along approximately 280 feet of trail. Crews reported that this is the most physically

8 demanding work they do in their entire summer work season. Projects Coordinator Seth King was integral to project planning with stewardship staff from AVIS, performing site walks and coordinating materials deliveries. AMC staff met with Representative Leonard Lance (R-N.J.) in his Flemington, N.J., office on August 10. The discussion included support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund and the Highlands Conservation Act, as well as the potential New Jersey route for the PennEast Pipeline. Rep. Lance expressed his support for increased funding for the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) in this year s appropriations cycle. AMC Staff Scientist Georgia Murray co-presented at the U.S. Forest Service Hubbard Brook Annual Cooperators Meeting with a Kennett Middle School (KMS) student she mentored this past year. This meeting involves many scientists from universities and resource agencies. The student, Eloryn Fall (above), presented her 7 th grade science fair project, in which she analyzed photos of tree foliage near KMS and used software to measure the red, blue, and green color intensity of fall foliage color change, e.g., fall phenology.

9 The photos were among images collected by the Camnet network and supported by the White Mountain National Forest. While the photos are aimed at tracking visual air pollution, Murray realized the images of deciduous trees provide another source of data for tracking phenology. Eloryn was interested in using the images and software provided by phenology researchers at the University of New Hampshire and Harvard University to look for any trends in peak fall foliage timing. Her findings, paired with data from other nearby sites, including one at Hubbard Brook, show these photos are a robust source of automated information to quantify phenological changes in tree canopies across the White Mountains. She and Murray hope to continue this collaboration in anticipation of next year s science fair. Eloryn was the youngest presenter ever at the meeting, and the young scientist received kudos for her work and poise. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on August 2 withdrew its decision to delay the 2015 ozone standards amid legal challenges from environmental and public health groups and 16 states. The move indicates there was no basis for the delay, according to AMC Staff Scientist Georgia Murray. Murray said implementation of the new standard is expected to benefit public health, including the health of people who are active outdoors. A legal challenge to EPA s delay of implementing the ozone standard was brought by Earthjustice on behalf of AMC as well as American Lung Association, National Parks Conservation Association, and other organizations. Many of the 16 states that challenged EPA on the delay are in AMC s region, including New York, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and the District of Columbia. California, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington also joined. EPA s notice of the withdrawal is online. The New Hampshire Site Evaluation Committee s decision to accept or deny the proposed Northern Pass electric transmission line is likely to come this autumn, following its final adjudicatory hearings, which are under way. Northern Pass has proposed construction of a 190-mile-long, high-voltage transmission line through New Hampshire from Canada to the Massachusetts border. The project would include 1,100 towers up to 160 feet tall. At the ongoing adjudicatory hearings attended by AMC Research staff and AMC s counsel, William Plouffe, the project's flaws continue to be brought to light. Summaries of the cross-examination of Northern Pass s experts can be read here. (Links to each session are at the end of this article in chronological order.) In July, Hydro-Quebec bid into the recent Massachusetts Request for Proposals (RFP) for purchase power agreements with two other parties in addition to its bid with its Northern Pass partner, Eversource. Northern Pass appears to be dependent on winning this RFP bid. One of Hydro-Quebec s competing co-bids is with the New England Clean Power Link, a full-burial proposal in Vermont. Northern Pass has argued that burial is not financially feasible. The New Hampshire Chapter is gearing up to host the Fall Gathering on Ossipee Lake in Freedom, N.H., October Whether you want to do some cycling, hiking, contra dancing, or camp fire-ing, this weekend event is bound to be a great time. Invite your friends and join AMCers from across the club by registering today. Registration closes on September 15. The summer is in full swing for our chapters. Our volunteer leaders continue to offer all kinds of activities this summer, including trail work, hiking, paddling, mountaineering and bicycling. Some chapters also extend the fun by offering various series to keep people engaged and/or introduce them to a new skill. The Berkshire

10 Chapter is offering several hiking series: Appalachian Trail through Massachusetts, River Hikes, and Easy Hikes in Northampton (to introduce hiking to inexperienced hikers). The Fire Island Cabin ran their usual riot of activities in July, including a midweek event dedicated to families, where guests made blueberry jam, and a midweek learn-to-play-chess workshop. Weekend themes included Learn to Kayak, Learn to Sail, and a live music weekend with the St. Elvis Band, whose members have been volunteering their talents for 19 years. A new program with the Fire Island National Seashore Rangers was also added to the schedule. August is the cabin s busiest month, offering sailing, kayaking, and sloop boat rides. Echo Lake Camp added a new week at the beginning of the season. The newly scheduled week got off to a great start with 33 campers, most of whom were new to Echo Lake Camp. Scott and Elly Preston are well settled into their second season managing ELC, bringing fresh ideas for camp operations and programs. Noble View just completed a major renovation on its historic Farm House, replacing a foundation wall, adding structural supports, and capping it all with a new metal roof, using $55,000 drawn from its invested reserves. Builders have now moved on to their next project: erecting a yurt to house their new onsite caretaker, Nate Cherniak. Nate has been volunteering at Noble View for over a year, and the committee is very happy that he has agreed to become the center s first employee. Medawisla has continued to make headlines following the lodge s opening, most recently including broadcast coverage by Bill Green s Maine that aired on WCSH 6 TV (Portland) and WLBZ 2 TV (Bangor), in addition to coverage from the Maine Sunday Telegram, Republican American, Concord Monitor, and Outside TV/White Mountains TV. All three of AMC s Maine Wilderness Lodges were recommended by Forbes.com in a story that reflected on the virtues of the remote and pristine nature of the area, thanks to AMC s conservation efforts. The Boston Sunday Globe travel section featured a range of AMC experiences for traveling green in New England, including Highland Center, AMC huts, guided programs, and Echo Lake Camp. Also, just in time for the Perseid meteor shower and solar eclipse, Yankee Magazine s August cover story featured Highland Center s astronomy program as one of 10 great ideas to make the summer last. As part of a series on New Hampshire islands, New Hampshire Public Radio aired a great slice-of-life piece on AMC s Three Mile Island Camp with lots of voices that captured the timelessness of the island. It aired on Morning Edition and again during All Things Considered.