Crocker Mountain/Orbeton Stream

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Appalachian Trail on Crocker Mountain in Stratton, Maine.

Credit: Jerry & Marcy Monkman

A stone's throw away from Sugarloaf Ski Resort, Maine's most popular ski area, the 12,409-acre Crocker Mountain property buffers more than ten miles of the Appalachian Trail, making it a prime location for second home residential development. The 5,808-acre Orbeton Stream property is strategically located near the expanding recreational hubs of Carrabassett, Rangeley, and Kingfield. Both of these properties offer miles of snowmobiling along Maine's Interconnected Trail System and guarantee access for non-motorized recreation as well. The Trust for Public Land is working to conserve both areas, which are now owned by private entities that will pursue a development strategy if a conservation sale is not successful.

Recreation is only one of the many benefits that make this land worth saving. Crocker Mountain is the largest working forest parcel remaining in Carrabasset Valley, which has the state's highest percentage of workers in the forest products. To help keep these people employed, roughly 60 percent of the Crocker Mountain property should continue to operate as working forest.

Both properties are of great ecological importance. Part of the state's largest subalpine forest, the Crocker Mountain property also contains three of Maine's highest peaks making it one of the few places in the Northeast predicted by climate models to retain consistent snowpack, cold temperatures, and spruce fir forests necessary for species like Eastern brook trout, lynx, marten, and snowshoe hare. The property also contains 25 percent of the global population of the state-listed endangered Roaring Brook mayfly an insect found at a mere 12 locations globally, three of which are on this property. In 2007, salmon reared in the Orbeton Stream watershed returned from the North Atlantic Ocean to spawn naturally—the first time in over 150 years.

Maine has a rare opportunity to protect significant ecological resources, preserve jobs, maintain outdoor recreation in the region, and provide a revenue stream for the Bureau of Parks and Lands, and we are working hard with partners to ensure the opportunity is not missed.