Sebago Lake

Looking south along Mt. Abraham Ridge

Staff from the Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust recently paid an annual monitoring visit to the Grafton Forest Wilderness Preserve, a 1,356-acre conservation easement that protects portions of the Appalachian Trail on Old Speck Mountain. Without this critical easement, the landowner could close this section of the A.T. and technically there would be no thru hiking if this happened! But that landowner is the Northeast Wilderness Trust, our frequent partner on A.T. conservati

Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust staff recently had its first visit to Moxie Pond Wilderness Preserve - a remote and spectacular area just north of the middle section of the Appalachian Trail in Maine. Moxie Pond lies in an area that doesn't contain higher elevation peaks but has rugged terrain, sweeping views, and many ponds and lakes that provide great recreation opportunities. It's also an area that is not as frequented as places like the Mahoosucs or the Hundred Mile Wi

The Maine A.T. Land Trust is very pleased to be welcoming MaryHope Gardner-Sears to our team as the organization's first ever Marketing and Development Manager. MaryHope relocated to Maine from Colorado in 2026, bringing years of non-profit development experience from Community Harvest Project and Colorado Open Lands. She grew up hiking across New England with her family. In her free time, she enjoys spending time outside hiking, trail running, skiing and camping. She current

The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust has a mission to preserve and protect land surrounding the Appalachian Trail in Maine for public benefit, and this includes many aspects of recreation and community that might at first seem unrelated to the trail. But these other uses are intimately connected to the ecology and social fabric of Maine's A.T., and come together to create the place so many enjoy and care for. In Maine's High Peaks region, MATLT's Redington Forest conservat

Executive Director Simon Rucker made an appearance on WMPG's Let's Connect with aquatic ecologist Amanda Gavin to talk about Maine Mountain Ponds (and Lakes). It was a great session on this newer field of A.T. ecology - listen below or head over to the Let's Connect WMPG page to listen there!

Way back in 2023 when the #WEOUTSIDE program was launched by MANA and MATLT, much of the focus was on the Appalachian Trail and other mountain hiking trails in Maine. Over time, the program has evolved to encompass so many different activities in Maine's outdoors. Hiking is a great way to experience the benefits and nature but there are different facets to outdoor adventures. #WEOUTSIDE branched out into canoeing, kayaking, and whitewater rafting. It took kids for adventures

On top of Bradbury Mountain, that is. For the first half of the summer, MANA and the Maine A.T. Land Trust teamed up with Our Place to provide some #WEOUTSIDE adventures to the Portland campers. Lots of the focus was the fun (obviously) but these kids got to experience some of the things the outdoors can teach us. Like the natural history of the landscape around us, or how mountain bike trails get built, or what kinds of birds you can identify from Maine's rocky coastline. Pa

The  Appalachian Trail Landscape Partnership ?(ATLP) will be holding its 11th Partnership Meeting from November 16-19 at  The Crowne Plaza , in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania! This year’s theme —  — will explore how partners across the region are responding to emerging challenges while advancing lasting conservation outcomes for communities, public lands, and the Appalachian Trail. Each year, ATLP’s Partnership Meeting brings together national, regional, and local conservation..

The 2026 #WEOUTSIDE program kicked off in spectacular style with an amazing mountain biking trip - with a new partner joining us. For July, MATLT and MANA are being joined by the crew from Our Place to bring them out for adventures in Maine's woods and waters. For this first adventure we decided to go big right away and so we all headed up to the Bethel Community Forest to meet up with our friends from Inland Woods + Trails. BCF has miles of multiuse trails and is a community

The High Peaks Initiative (HPI) recently convened the annual Conservation and Recreation Summit in Farmington, Maine, gathering local, regional, and national organizations working in Maine’s High Peaks region. This summit is a chance for people living, working, and playing in the A.T. region where ten of Maine's fourteen highest mountains lie. It's a place that's heavily focused on a way of life built around the outdoors - not just the mountains but the forests, rivers, strea

2026 Stewardship Site Visits — MATLT Volunteer Sign-Up *, *::before, *::after { box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0; padding: 0; } :root { --forest: #1e3a28; --fern: #2d5a3d; --sage: #6b8f71; --mist: #c8d8c2; --cream: #f5f0e8; --bark: #7a5c3e; --sun: #d4a843; --white: #ffffff; --text: #2a2a2a; --light-text:#5a5a5a; --matlt-olive: #6b7a2a; --matlt-brown: #8b5e3c; } body { font-family: "Source Sans 3", sans-serif; background: var(--cream)

MATLT is VERY pleased to announce the 2026 summer season of the #WEOUTSIDE program with the Maine Association for New Americans! After a turbulent winter season - during which members of the this community were taken by ICE and other federal agencies - the program will now move forward to provide these kids with the opportunity to get outside and enjoy all that Maine's mountains, waters, and trails have to offer. This summer, the program will feature a new partnership with Ou

As part of regional efforts to boost conservation and recreation outcomes in Maine's High Peaks region, MATLT and High Peaks Initiative (HPI) partners will once again be hosting a summit at the University of Maine at Farmington to further advance the goals of a regional action plan HPI published in 2025. The 2025 summit included people from land trusts, trail maintaining clubs, state government agencies, town governments, chambers of commerce, county commissioner's offices, f

A Maine landowner has pledged to donate his 50% share of a 5-acre private inholding within the Bigelow Preserve, setting in motion an effort to permanently protect a scenic stretch of Stratton Brook and eliminate a private motorized right-of-way in the preserve. The parcel — a 5-acre lot surrounded on all sides by lands managed by the Maine Bureau of Parks & Lands (BPL) — includes over 1,000 feet of frontage on Stratton Brook and sits within one of western Maine's most celebr

The Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust (MATLT) is proud to announce our partnership with project leads the Northeast Wilderness Trust and the Trust for Public Land to protect the Moxie Pond parcel — a nearly 1,845-acre property in Somerset County's Bald Mountain Township that represents one of the most ecologically and scenically significant conservation opportunities along Maine's Appalachian Trail. A Landscape That Exemplifies the Maine A.T. Experience Situated in the Carat