enlarge Derek Davis/Staff Photographer

No view from the top? The woods along the Appalachian Trail on Chairback Mountain fill with morning fog during a hike earlier this month in the heart of Maine’s 100-Mile Wilderness. The backcountry area offers plenty of solitude, a rarity in the increasingly crowded Northeast.

So how can anyone put in perspective what the Appalachian Mountain Club is trying to accomplish in the Maine Woods?

That question was on my mind, as Staff Photographer Derek Davis and I explored the region on foot, bike and canoe and visited the sporting camps recently purchased by the AMC.

I tried to imagine what hikers felt when they took the train from Boston, 75 years ago, to climb in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Or what early tourists thought when they first drove to Acadia National Park.

Could they have imagined that these places would become so popular that cars and people would choke the roads on a summer weekend?

I'm not sure the Maine Woods landscape east of Greenville is quite as dramatic as the White Mountains or Acadia. And I can see that the AMC is well aware of the need to manage development and maintain the region's wilderness feel.

But as the pace of civilization speeds up, quiet solitude has growing currency. The AMC, with it's large membership, deep pockets and aggressive marketing, is in a good position to capitalize on this value.

Maybe what the AMC is doing is not that different from what the Maine Central and Bangor and Aroostook railroads did more than 75 years ago, luring trainloads of tourists to the Maine Woods.

During our visit, I felt a bit like the early adventurer who visited Mount Katahdin before Baxter State Park.

We paddled across three remote ponds and saw no other boats or people. We were the only mountain bikers on a newly blazed trail, and we bushwhacked the route of a hiking path that doesn't exist yet.

In 2007, there's still plenty of room in this corner of the Maine Woods to feel a sense of discovery.

But the AMC, even though it's a nonprofit conservation group, is also a business.

It recognizes that, after a long day in the woods, many people aren't content to sleep on the ground and eat beans out of a can. So the club is smart to buy rustic sporting camps, upgrade the experience with modern bath houses, electric lights and hearty meals and charge people good money to stay in them. That's roughing it in 21st century America.

The club also is smart to encourage families to enjoy these camps with their children. They are the next generation of conservation-minded hikers and paddlers who will care in 25 years about the land the AMC is buying today.

Despite our state's creeping suburban culture, Mainers maintain a strong connection to the northern forest. In researching our series, we talked to snowmobilers, hunters and others who are less than thrilled with what the AMC is doing.

Change is rarely embraced by everyone. And on the ground, we could see some growing pains.

On balance, I think, the AMC is increasing access to the land it owns. Beyond sporting camps, the club is adding campsites and primitive shelters, which is good, because not everyone can afford $90 or so a day for meals and a bed.

Davis and I were skeptical that many mountain bikers will embrace the camp-to-camp trail. It may turn out that loop trails, which lead back to a starting point and don't involve the logistics of moving vehicles, would be more popular.

We also wondered how many paddlers will follow a water trail that involves dragging a canoe over a mile of rocky river bottom. There's a good reason the upper reaches of the Roach River don't see many humans.

In the marketing department, the AMC needs to come up with a name for its destination.

The club has been calling the project the Maine Woods Initiative. That's fine for fundraising, but I won't be asking a friend if he wants to go hiking up on The Initiative.

These are small matters, though. One overriding theme stuck with me as I saw what the AMC is doing in Maine.

It is the operating principle that the AMC's leadership in Boston...