6,500 acre Grafton Forest Wilderness adjacent to Appalachian Trail preserves open forest
This week, the Northeast Wilderness Trust celebrated its 20th Anniversary by announcing the largest single land purchase in its history — 6,045 acres to be known as Grafton Forest Wilderness Preserve.
In the heart of the Mahoosucs next to Grafton Notch State Park, the Grafton Forest Wilderness Preserve is a forever-wild refuge along Maine’s Appalachian Trail and will be second only to the Katahdin region in offering unbroken, high-elevation forest.
The acquisition is the wilderness component of an even larger conservation project that Northeast Wilderness Trust worked on with the Forest Society of Maine. FSM now holds an easement on 15,000 adjacent acres to be sustainably managed for timber, placing a total of over 21,000 acres under preservation or management designation.
The agreement permanently conserves public access to the area and two popular Appalachian Trail side trails — the Notch Trail and the Speck Pond Trail. It also provides permanent public vehicular access to them.
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