The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and Adirondack Mountain Reserve (AMR) have announced that the pilot parking reservation system launched last spring to limit access to trails in the Route 73 corridor will resume May 1st.
More than 21,000 users have registered at www.hikeamr.org to make parking reservations.
From May 1st through October 31st this year, reservations will again be required to access the parking lot, trailheads, and trails located on the privately owned, 7,000-acre AMR property in the town of Keene in the High Peaks region. The Reserve has a longstanding conservation easement with DEC that allows public access for hiking.
In its first year, the pilot parking reservation system accepted registrations from 14,200 New Yorkers, 6,600 registrations from people residing out of state, and 138 people from other countries. One-hundred-and-thirteen Canadian users registered last year, a reflection of border crossing restrictions in place during the COVID-19 pandemic. This number is expected to increase as restrictions are lifted.
Advanced parking reservations at AMR are available at no-cost and must be obtained for single-day or overnight use, getting dropped off or picked up in the AMR lot by a vehicle, or arriving by bicycle. Seventy reservations, including overnight reservations, are available per day. Walk-in users without a reservation are not permitted unless these users can provide a Greyhound or Trailways bus ticket from within the past 24 hours. Reservations are also required for access to the Noonmark and Round Mountain trailheads located on AMR property.
Reservations can be made as far as two weeks in advance. New bookings for 2022 will open on April 17th, and users will be able to make reservations 14 days out on a 24-hour rolling basis.
When compared to previous years, organizers of the system say 2021’s reservation system resulted in visitor use at AMR more equally distributed throughout the week.
Since the program launched in April 2021, DEC and AMR made several updates. AMR installed an automatic one-way gate to allow for late departures from the parking lot. AMR also implemented e-mail reservation reminders to help reduce the number of no-shows. Shortly after launch, the number of individuals permitted per reservation was increased to eight and the booking window was adjusted, allowing reservations to be made up to 12 hours in advance. AMR also moved the start time for the rolling two-week opening of future dates from midnight to noon.
For a list of frequently asked questions and to register, visit www.hikeamr.org. Reservations will open April 17th, 2022.
I wish someone would challenge this in court. I still think it’s an illegal abrogation of a long standing easement to public Forest Preserve lands. If one wants to reference my reasoning, find the NO opinion from last year on this subject. I’m the author.