The State Department of Environmental Conservation, Adirondack Park Agency, several Adirondack conservation groups, and the public have been concerned about trail overuse, crowds, trail degradation, and parking availability. Without hard data, it is difficult to devise promising solutions, including land classification.
The AWA has been studying the use of trail counters and kiosks for some time. Several studies have been undertaken by Board member Craig McGowan and his students at the Rochester Institute of Technology. They have been studying 3 possible ways to quantify and identify visitor use.
The first is a mobile app which hikers could use on their phones at trailheads with cellular access. They could register their arrival and time, the availability of parking, where they are from, and their trip plans.
The second are digital trail registers or kiosks, again, where there is internet capability. These would replace paper trail registers which have been used for years. The advantages of digital kiosks is real-time data enabling other hikers to assess how crowded a particular parking lot or trail may be as well as allow quick remote ranger access in case of emergencies, i.e., checking to see if and when someone may have registered or returned without having to visit the register. The kiosks would also allow easier and quicker data access. At present, paper registers are collected periodically and stored.
Third would be relatively inexpensive trail counters. These would be the easiest of the 3 possibilities to implement. Since not all hikers “sign in,” trail counters would provide more reliable data on numbers of hikers undertaking hikes at both popular and less frequented trailheads.
