A hiker ascend Maine's Baker Mountain. Image courtesy of Appalachian Mountain Club.

A pristine 4,300-plus acre parcel of Maine’s remote 100-Mile Wilderness area is now safeguarded by the country’s largest conservation and recreation organization.

The land, outside Greenville and Moosehead Lake, conserves a vibrant wild brook trout fishery and 3,521-foot Baker Mountain, the second highest peak in the Pine Tree State between massive Mount Katahdin and Bigelow Mountain.

The Boston-based Appalachian Mountain Club, with some help from The Nature Conservancy, recently purchased the property that will be managed for a number of uses including habitat protection, sustainable forestry and recreation.

The hardwood and softwood forest is home to the rare Bicknell’s thrush. The headwaters of the West Branch of the Pleasant River with its trout fishery runs through it.

About half of the land lies within a roadless area of more than 5,500 acres that encompasses the Baker/Lily Bay Range while the whole of it is in an area designed by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as critical habitat for Canada lynx.

Access is limited to the non-motorized sect, meaning there are no existing ATV or snowmobile trails on the property.

“Baker Mountain was surrounded by conservation lands, but the Baker Mountain tract itself was not protected. It was ‘the hole in the doughnut,’ and with this purchase, AMC and its conservation partner, TNC, have ensured that this ecologically significant land will be protected,” said AMC senior vice president Walter Graff.

AMC purchased two adjacent parcels abutting its Katahdin Iron Works property: 3,111 acres from the Prentiss and Carlisle Group and Plum Creek Timber Co., and a separate parcel comprising 1,200 acres from Plum Creek.

TNC was a key partner in the acquisition, Graff noted. TNC holds a “forever wild” conservation easement on the first parcel covering about three-quarters of Baker Mountain, including its summit, to ensure permanent protection of the land’s ecological values, he said.

The second is permanently protected by the Moosehead Regional Conservation Easement, held by the Forest Society of Maine.

“Conserving Baker Mountain for future generations is a tremendous accomplishment, not just for its strategic location, surrounded by conserved lands, but also for what this project represents,” said Michael Tetreault, director of TNC in Maine. “It supports the Appalachian Mountain Club’s efforts to provide a unique backcountry recreation experience, while conserving an important ecological gem in Baker Mountain, within a mosaic of working forest lands.”

Land acquisition, establishment of a stewardship endowment fund, and related costs totaled about $2.4 million, according to Graff.

The Baker Mountain acquisition was made possible in part by the generosity of Steven C. Leuthold and his family. The Leutholds have a strong interest in protecting wilderness. AMC is grateful to the Leuthold family and for the generosity of a small group of loyal AMC donors who helped protect Baker Mountain.

AMC also used proceeds from the sale of verified carbon emission off-set credits from its ecological reserve lands as an important funding source for this land acquisition effort. By encouraging natural forest growth on its 10,000-acre ecological reserve, AMC is preserving stored carbon in the forest while realizing an additional revenue stream through the sale of these Climate Action Reserve-registered credits.

“We’re excited to be able to help reduce atmospheric carbon while at the same time using these revenues to directly support land conseravation,” Graff said.

The purchase of the tract is part of AMC’s Maine Woods Initiative, an innovative approach to conservation that combines outdoor recreation, natural resource conservation, community partnerships, and sustainable forestry.

Baker Mountain is a scenic feature that can be seen from many areas of high recreational use like the AMC’s Little Lyford Lodge and Cabins and a number of lakes and ponds.

The property contains a portion of the Pleasant River Trail, a major non-motorized recreational trail connecting Little Lyford Lodge and Cabins to the privately-owned West Branch Pond Camps on AMC’s Roach Ponds tract conservation and recreation property. The trail is a critical component of a larger trail network providing the opportunity for “lodge-to-lodge” trips.

AMC now has about 70,000 acres of conservation and recreation land in the 100-Mile Wilderness known to many in the long-distance hiking community as having a particularly challenging stretch of the Appalachian Trail.