When the Natinal Park Service and the owners of Saddleback Mountain began negotiations over protecting a section of Appalachian Trail that crosses the ski area, nearly half of the 2,100-mile trail was unprotected. Now, two decades later, only 26 miles of unprotected trail remain. The stretch over Saddleback Mountain, unfortunately, is still among them.

The current level of distrust between the parties suggests the negotiations would continue for some time, long after the other remaining few miles are protected and long after either side would profit from the standoff. Maine senators, meeting this week with the director of the Park Service, Robert Stanton, can help end this deadlock.

Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins already have formally urged the Park Service to accept the latest offer from Saddleback. As a simple donation of 660 acres, the proposal is more than adequate; with the exemptions included in the deed, it is untenable. Those exemptions include the following: “the above ground and below ground maintaining, repairing, building, rebuilding, and using structures, buildings, ski lifts, skiing trails, wind barriers and snow fencing, signs, snowmaking pipes and facilities, electrical, water, telephone, and utility lines and other recreational facilities. …”

The Park Service and Saddleback could try to pick apart these various points to find some compromise, or they could face reality: A ski area cannot be developed over a nature trail. It is unfair to ask Saddleback’s owners to forgo development that will keep the ski resort in business, and it is equally unfair to ask the Park Service to accept the deal with the development covenant as stated. The stalemate that has existed for years did not emerge because the two sides were negotiating in bad faith, but because their goals are contradictory.

There is, however, a solution, one that has been discussed in this case from time to time. The feds should buy the mountain. Not all of it, just the trail area and the back bowl section that Saddleback might someday develop. The Park Service has not made this offer before because it can’t pay above a bare appraisal. But Congress can, and Maine’s senators should.

Members of Congress from both parties currently have proposals in the House and Senate that would set aside more than $1 billion for land purchases and easements. Certainly, a tiny (not too tiny) fraction of that money could be set aside to compensate the landowners of this small section of the historic Appalachian Trail. Certainly, when Congress instructed the Park Service to protect the land along the trail, it anticipated that situations like this would arise.

With help from the senators, Saddleback and the Park Service ought to be able to come to agreement on what would be purchased — the exact dimension of the land, the development rights, etc. — and then agree on a third party to establish a price. A coordinated effort from the senators and the Park Service to persuade Congress to fund the proposal could take many months, but that is far better than spending more time in a debate without end.