Earl’s Alidade

After two years of planning, construction, and cajoling, Earl Raymond, Maine IAT’s official surveyor and trail router extraordinaire, was joined by a group of Maine IAT board members and friends on Deasey Mountain to install a replica of the original alidade used by wardens to pinpoint the locations of forest fires in Maine’s north woods.

When installing an alidade, alignment is key!

An alidade consists of a circular map, oriented to align with true north, and a center mounted horizontal bar with two vertical sighting vanes.

Close look at the circular map. Note the mountain profiles and compass points around the outer edge.

The bar is rotated while the fire warden sights through the vanes on a distant object (a wisp of smoke, for example). The warden can then note the bearing of the object on the map. When a second warden on a different mountain sights on the same wisp, the two bearings can be be used to triangulate the location of a fire.

How many people can you fit into an 8×8′ cabin? (l to r) Nate Norris, Dan Swallow, Chunzeng Wang, Dave Rand, Kirk St. Peter, Earl Raymond, Nancy Hathaway, Ford Stevenson and Susan Adams.

After installing the device, Earl gave his group of helpers (all of whom managed to squeeze into the small 8 x 8-foot lookout cabin) a quick lesson on alidade use which you can see on this YouTube video.

Mike Zimmermann (aka “Old Moose”) IAT-ME HikeOctober 10, 2015 & April 24 – May 8, 2016

Ever since hiking the Appalachian Trail (AT) in Maine in 2006, Mike Zimmerman (aka “Old Moose”) has been interested in hiking the International Appalachian Trail (IAT) in Maine and Canada. Since then, he has hiked the AT as far south as Sherburne, Vermont and two-thirds of the Long Trail in Vermont.
Old Moose actually started the IAT in Maine on October 10, 2015, when he took the Katahdin Lake Trail in Baxter State Park to Katahdin Lake Wilderness Camps, then continued on the South Katahdin Lake Trail to the park boundary at the Katahdin Lake East (KLE) access point, the IAT southern terminus. He hiked on the IAT for a total of 0.3 miles to the old Gardner Road before turning around.

May 2016 Trail Work Trip Report

Don Hudson arrived at Bowlin Camps before everyone else and rode his bike north on the IAT looking for blowdowns and clearing brush on the trail. Around noon, the rest of the work crew arrived: Dave Rand with his ATV, Julia Daly and two UMF students (Mike Paradis and Maria Noyola), Kirk and Cheryl St. Peter with an ATV, Lucy Leaf and Nancy Hathaway. We had the larger “No Aces” cabin for the women and the “Chapman 2” one room cabin for the guys. This had to be the first trail work trip ever where the women outnumbered the men!