Lone Mountain
Wilderness Sanctuary

In 2018, Northeast Wilderness Trust accepted a generous gift of land from lifelong wilderness advocate George N. Appell of Phillips, Maine. In honor of his late wife Laura W. R. Appell (née Reynolds), George gave the Wilderness Trust 1,155 acres to create Lone Mountain Wilderness Sanctuary. “Laura loved the wilderness, the rural areas and the forest of Maine’s North Woods,” he reflected when conserving the land. George passed away peacefully in 2020, and the Appell family legacy lives on in Lone Mountain Wilderness Sanctuary.

The Sanctuary’s namesake summit, 3,280’ Lone Mountain, falls just to the south of the property. The preserved land buffers nearly two miles of the Appalachian Trail corridor, managed by the National Park Service. It is also protected by a conservation easement held by the US Navy, as part of an earlier transaction.

The Lone Mountain Wilderness Preserve compliments this impressive patchwork of conserved lands and adds another much-needed wilderness core area – safeguarding habitat for sensitive species and views from the Appalachian Trail.

The majority of the Lone Mountain Wilderness Preserve is mid-elevation spruce-fir forests and forested wetlands.  Other conservation lands belonging to the state border the property on the north and east sides, making the preserve a critical link in connecting the network of already conserved lands in the area.