By Amanda Gokee, Globe Staff | Oct. 21, 2025
CONCORD, N.H. – A new wilderness preserve has been created, spanning 2,000 acres along a stretch of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire.
The Northeast Wilderness Trust, a nonprofit regional land trust, purchased the land in October and is now working to enter it into a conservation easement that will ensure the Spruce Ridge Wilderness Preserve remains forever free of development or logging. The $5.5 million project provides a wilderness buffer along about a 1.5-mile stretch of the Appalachian Trail around Mount Cube in Orford, N.H., according to Jon Leibowitz, president and CEO of Northeast Wilderness Trust.
“The value that people have come to love about the Appalachian Trail is inherently at risk because so much of the surrounding lands that you look at when you’re on the trail itself are private, and they’re at risk of various uses,” Leibowitz said.
The Appalachian Trail covers more than 2,190 miles from Maine to Georgia.