On Earth Day last year the volunteers who helped create the International Appalachian Trail announced its completion. As Earth Day came and went this year, Dick Anderson, the founder of the trail that runs from Baxter State Park in northern Maine to Quebec, was mulling over how to fix a gap, even as he was celebrating improvements to the 90-mile stretch that runs through the state.

This month the Maine chapter of the IAT signed two landowner agreements that nearly complete its camping facilities. New campsites will be built in Smyrna and Ludlow in Aroostook County.

At the same time, Anderson has had to mend the trail in one of the few places in Maine where it actually runs through the woods, a spot where a land deal in the fall interrupted its continuity.

In September when Wendell and Marie Pierce sold the Big Rock Ski Area on Mars Hill to the Maine Winter Sports Center, a nonprofit corporation funded by the Portland-based Libra Foundation, the trail hit a roadblock, Anderson said. A section of the trail a few hundred yards in length must be relocated because it is on a ski run that will be upgraded.

Brian Hamel, MWSC board president, said the organization plans to work closely with Anderson to allow the trail to continue its route over Mars Hill, which has views of Mount Katahdin and Canada.

Hamel believes the conflict can be worked out. “The two activities are compatible,” he said.

Such support is something Anderson needs.

The trail that spans some 600 miles beyond the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail is mostly in the woods through New Brunswick and Quebec, but in Maine, it’s mostly on rural roads. Anderson said the goal is to put it in “the wilderness” – and keep it there.

In Canada, Anderson said, 367 miles is already in the woods. By contrast, the 90 miles of the trail that runs through Maine has less than 10 miles that runs through forestland, according to Torrey Sylvester, vice president of the IAT Maine chapter and one of the landowners who signed an agreement to allow a campsite to be built on his land in Smyrna.

Sylvester said it has been a struggle to find a way into the woods for the trail because the forestland is mostly owned by paper companies, which have not been as supportive as Hamel.

But the effort to move the trail into the woods has been gaining support.

When the trail was officially opened, Baxter State Park director Irvin “Buzz” Caverly made it clear that he didn’t want the trail to become an extension of the Appalachian Trail, encouraging hordes of thru-hikers to go through the northern end of the park. Caverly said then that he was concerned about the impact on the environment from people camping without reservations in unapproved areas where there are no official campsites.

Today the trail’s Web site shows two routes. One backtracks from Mount Katahdin over the AT and out the south entrance of Baxter State Park to Millinocket. An alternative route goes north through the park to Matagamon Lake and then east toward Smyrna. Now, Caverly doesn’t mind.

He said Anderson and members of the Maine chapter of the IAT have convinced him they are getting out the message that hikers need to make camping reservations at Baxter, which is not easy to do.

To reserve a campsite during the summer hikers have to either show up at park headquarters in early January to get one or take their luck sending a request through the mail.

Taking the route that goes north through Baxter is at least a three-day journey, with campsites located about every nine miles.

“It’s about 27 miles, but it is equivalent to 40, depending on how old you are,” Caverly said of the distance from Katahdin out the north end of the park.

“Most hikers get reservations through Baxter,” Anderson said. “[The alternative route] is not the official trail. It’s more direct, and more fun going through the northern end of the park, rather than through the city of Millinocket. You get off the road.”