This Management Plan details the policies and practices that the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club follows to manage the Tuscarora Trail for which this Club is responsible. The Tuscarora Trail Management Plan accomplishes the following purposes:
- Define the management objectives, principles, and procedures that guide the PATC in its management and maintenance of the Tuscarora Trail.
- Specify the cooperative roles shared by the PATC and partners, to include private landowners, in the management and maintenance of the Tuscarora Trail.
- Identify management issues regarding the physical Trail and the Trail corridor lands and prescribe methods to deal with them.
- Inform land and trail managers, and the public of the continuing management issues confronting the PATC in its management of the Tuscarora Trail.
Format
Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 identify the background concerning the Tuscarora Trail, the trail description, and the cooperative system used to manage the Trail.
Chapters 4 through 7 deal with specific management issues and policies regarding the physical trail, public use and information, conflicting uses, and resource management.
Where appropriate, specific physical areas are identified in these chapters (for instance, the locations of shelters). When these are inventoried in an appendix, they are located by their distance as indicated on PATC-published maps from north to south.
The appendices provide documentation that supports the system developed to manage the Tuscarora Trail, including:
- Cooperative agreements
- Maps
- Trailheads
- Side and connecting trails
- Stream crossings & Springs
- Shelters & campgrounds
- Protected Trail Tracts
- Scenic, cultural, and natural resources
Additionally, Appendix A presents a brief discussion of the history, purposes, and accomplishments of PATC.
The Great Eastern Trail
This new long-distance trail begins at the Alabama-Florida line, where it connects with the Florida National Scenic Trail. It continues over 1800 miles to its connection with the Finger Lakes Trail in New York. The Great Eastern Trail (GET) uses existing trails along the way, including a portion of the Tuscarora Trail.
The southern connection with the Tuscarora Trail Great is where the Mill Mountain Trail and the Tuscarora connect at mile 19.5 on PATC Map F. The GET then uses the Tuscarora Trail north through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania to where the Old Forbes Road diverges from the Tuscarora north Cowans Gap State Park in Pennsylvania. The GET uses the Forbes Road and the Standing Stone Trail (formerly the Link Trail) at approximately mile 13 on PATC Map K.
The GET is separately managed by the Great Eastern Trail Coordinating Committee, an organization comprised of two representatives from each of the ten states through which it passes. PATC has several representatives on the Coordinating Committee, representing Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. The GET path is separately maintained by the individual clubs comprising the trail, and each club determines the type of path and user groups. In places the GET is hikers only, while in other places it is multi-use, depending on the requirements of the land manager. There is no separate blazing scheme for the GET. At major trail intersections maintaining clubs can erect signs indicating that the hiker is following the path of the Great Eastern Trail.
Copyright ©2007 The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club
