This View is Not For Sale

Losing our public lands means losing the beauty they give us.

By Peak Design

March 18^th, 2026

This month, Peak Design is teaming up with our friends at The Trust for Public Lands (TPL) to promote their annual Happiest Outside campaign, celebrating the many ways we enjoy our beautiful outdoors. The existence of our outdoor spaces however, can not be taken for granted. Today, significant threats to our public lands reminds us that it takes vigilance and advocacy to protect what we love. Below is a guest post from TPL about one of the many reasons we protect these places and how you can get involved.

Why do we conserve land? There are many reasons. Health is an obvious one: green spaces encourage physical activity and mental wellbeing. Then there are the myriad ways parks and trails bring people together, fostering a sense of community. And, of course, land conservation helps boost climate resilience and biodiversity, saving habitats for animal species and giving carbon-capturing plants room to flourish. For more than 50 years, Trust for Public Land has preserved landscapes, protected trail corridors, and created park spaces that help people access and connect to those benefits.

But there’s another impetus for our work, one that is, perhaps, ineffable. Some places are worth protecting simply because they’re beautiful. Who among us hasn’t been gob-smacked by nature’s power—a multicolored sunset painting the sky, a waterfall coursing down a cliff face, a glassy pond capturing the mirror image of autumn foliage.

What if those places, those moments, those photo ops didn’t exist? Believe it or not, there are people out there who would put short-term gain over the long-term returns that come from these incredible places. Special interest groups are pushing to strip away land protections, opening the door to development. That’s why TPL is supporting a bipartisan bill in Congress that would prevent the sale or transfer of public lands. Join us. Tell your representatives to keep Public Lands in Public Hands. Sign the petition.

Every conservation project we pursue delivers interlocking social and ecological benefits. But some opportunities jump out specifically for their scenic value, and that’s especially true along the 11 National Scenic Trails in the United States. These long-distance footpaths, which include the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails, connect public lands and communities while offering remarkable scenery along the way.

Development pressures in recent decades have meant that suburbanization is creeping closer to once-rural areas, risking the wilderness feel—or at least natural experience—of hiking these trails.

The Appalachian Trail (known colloquially as the AT) is a case in point. We’ve conserved more than 300,000 acres along the full expanse of the AT, a third of those acres in Maine alone.

Moxie Bald Mountain and Bald Mountain Pond are emblems of the Maine AT experience; the trail carries visitors to both. It’s also an ecological trophy, with blocks of old-growth forest and alpine vegetation, traversed by moose and other mountain-dwelling mammals.

“I get out a lot, and there are very few places I’ve been where you can do a combo of hiking and paddling in one trip,” says J.T. Horn, who leads TPL’s trail program. “Bald Mountain Pond is a neat place to do a wild, remote lake paddle and then a beautiful, remote summit hike above the tree line. When you get up to Moxie Bald, you have commanding 360-degree views.” Trust for Public Land recently protected 2,600 acres, ensuring that wild vibe and unmatched panoramas remain. But there is more work to be done, and the need is greater than ever before.

Special views deserve special protections, whether you’re gazing at them for a few moments as you catch your breath or preserving them for posterity with a photograph. We need your help now more than ever. Tell your representatives to keep Public Lands in Public Hands. Sign the petition.