Dr. Edwin Ketchledge, 1924-2010

Dr. Edwin Ketchledge, a renowned scientist, educator and conservationist who founded the Adirondack Summit Steward Program, died Wednesday (June 30) at his home in Potsdam. He was 85.

Dr. Ketchledge, known as “Ketch,” was an active Adirondack Mountain Club (ADK) member for many years and played a key role in a number of crucial conservation efforts. Along with the late Almy Coggeshall, Dr. Ketchledge helped introduce the “carry in, carry out” philosophy to the Adirondacks. In the late 1960s, as chair of the club’s Natural History Committee, he expanded the summer natural history programs at the Adirondak Loj. In the 1980s, he testified before a U.S. Senate hearing about the Adirondacks’ vulnerability to acid rain.

 As a botanist, Dr. Ketchledge did extensive research on the mosses of New York state and the alpine tundra zone of the Adirondack High Peaks. In December 1989, he organized a meeting of conservation organizations, including ADK, to bring attention to the threat to rare alpine species posed by the growth in outdoor recreation. It was out of this meeting that the Adirondack Summit Steward Program, sponsored by ADK, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Adirondack Nature Conservancy, was born. Since 1990, summit stewards have connected with more than a quarter million visitors to the High Peaks summits.

Dr. Ketchledge was born in Trenton, N.J., in 1924. He served with the U.S. Army 10th Mountain Division’s ski troops in Italy and was seriously wounded. He received the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. He attended the SUNY College of Forestry in Syracuse, the University of Michigan and Stanford University, where he earned a Ph.D. in botany. Dr. Ketchledge taught at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry until his retirement in 1985.

Dr. Ketchledge was the author of “Forests & Trees of the Adirondack High Peaks Region,” published by ADK, and wrote numerous articles on forest ecology for Adirondac magazine. He was a passionate mountain climber, backwoods camper, cross country skier, bobsledder, hiker and kayaker.

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