This episode of Outside In is made possible in part by Antioch University,

empowering adult learners for career advancement and building a more just society,

with more than 175 programs rooted in social justice,

including online and low residency masters, doctoral, and certificate programs in environmental studies.

Learn more at antioch.edu. etu. Outside in producer Kate Dario has been out in the woods a lot lately.

How far from where you're thinking of kind of our goal for scope place are we just...

Because I have some follow up questions.

I mean, maybe quarter, we're getting pretty close.

That was Kate with conservationist Zach Porter.

It was fall, and they were hiking in New Hampshire's White Mountain National Forest.

We're here at the Great Gulf Trailhead on the edge of the presidential range, one of the most

iconic, magnificent landscapes in the whole of the eastern U.S.

At the trailhead, the Forest Service had posted instructions for hikers.

Leave no trace, stay on the trails, carry in, carry out.

Zach agrees with this advice. But what I see when I look at the sign are all of the

ironies in what we see here. Because while the Forest Service is telling people to leave no trace, they're also planning

to allow the timber industry to cut down thousands of trees right near this spot.

When I read a sign like this and I see these admonitions to be careful out there, be respectful,

it just doesn't sit well with me, knowing what the Forest Service is planning to do in this really special place.

I recently moved to New Hampshire from out west, where logging is a fact of life.

But here, in the White Mountains, with its ski areas, popular hiking trails, only three hours from Boston,

many people treat it more like a national park.

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