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MOVED BY MOUNTAINS In this woodblock by In the first big wave of trail building, The Abenaki Presence Endures Marshall Field, Ethan Hiker-Built Trails Deepen Pride of Place Allen Crawford is depicted hotel owners financed the construction carrying a bear, one of the of bridle paths to fill hotel beds and cater For millennia, Abenaki people traveled on foot and by canoe many legends that gave the By the late 19th century, trails throughout the region for hunting, trading, diplomacy and White Mountains an allure to a growing leisure class infatuated by were being built by walkers for that attracted luminaries, “the sublime” in paintings and writings. war. The main routes followed river corridors, as shown such as Daniel Webster, walkers in the most spectacular in this 1958 map by historian and archaeologist Chester Henry David Thoreau and This inset is from a larger 1859 map and Nathaniel Hawthorne. settings. Hiking clubs developed Price. By the late 1700s, colonialism, disease, warfare and drawing by Franklin Leavitt. distinct identities, local loyalties European settlement had decimated native communities. GLADYS BROOKS MEMORIAL LIBRARY, MOUNT WASHINGTON OBSERVATORY and enduring legacies. Their main foot trails were taken over and later supplanted by stagecoach roads, railroads and eventually state highways. DARTMOUTH DIGITAL LIBRARY COLLECTIONS “As I was standing on an Grand Hotels Build Trails for Profit old log chopping, with my WONALANCET OUT DOOR CLUB Native footpaths axe raised, the log broke, The actual experience of riding horseback on a For example, the Wonalancet Out Door Club developed its identity were often faint and I came down with bridle path was quite a bit rougher than suggested around its trademark blue sign posts, its land conservation advocacy to modern eyes by this 1868 painting by Winslow Homer. One and more recently, an absolute fidelity to using hand tools in and called for keen such force that the axe 1849 account describes the bridle path up Mount designated wilderness areas. Washington as “so deep and narrow” that riders’ way-finding skills. RAUNER SPECIAL COLLECTIONS LIBRARY, DARTMOUTH COLLEGE struck my right ankle and legs regularly snagged on exposed roots. During Sometimes, natives glanced, nearly cutting my The profusion of trail sign types reflects the parochialism of backcountry bent saplings into the eight-hour journey, horses twice threw off management in the Whites. Clubs cling to distinct signs as important to directional markers, Early Hikers Raked heel cord off; I bled freely, riders and once threw off a horse shoe. club identity, a potent tool in mobilizing volunteers and resources. which grew into and so much so that I was “trail trees.” by Puckerbrush unable to stand or go.” ETHAN ALLEN CRAWFORD DESCRIBING AX In 1819, Abel Crawford and his son Ethan INJURY WHILE CUTTING A TRAIL TO THE TOP OF MOUNT WASHINGTON IN 1823 (LUCY Allen cut an eight-mile path from what is CRAWFORD’S “HISTORY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS” 1846) now Crawford Notch to Mount Washington. WONALANCET OUT DOOR CLUB The trail originally served their guests A shining example of the transformative EARL GILBERT MOUNTAIN STEWARDS ALEX DELUCIA and later became the oldest continuously power of trails was the awakening of WHITNEY SILBERBLATT Wonalancet from sleepy backwoods An Abenaki landmark was made more maintained recreational path in the US. hamlet into a lively hiking center in the Present-day Abenakis have accessible in 2015 when teens improved the 1890s. It was largely engineered by the revived their culture and trail to Mount Jasper in Berlin. This summit indefatigable Kate Sleeper, pictured here, transformed the making photo was taken near a 9,000-year-old “One scrub differs from another only in its increasing fiendishness. It is an who moved to the area to open an inn of baskets and canoes, the stone mine, source of quartz-like rhyolite army of porcupines over and under and around you ... If your garments are and became post master, trail promoter original outdoor gear, into art used in tool-making. forms. Abenaki words endure not ironbound, you will become a traveling ragbag, a deplorable shade of your and land conservationist. in White Mountain place former self. And you must be prepared to be mutilated.” WINSLOW HOMER, CLARK ART INSTITUTE names, such as Pemigewasset, Ammonoosuc and Moosilauke. JOURNALIST CHARLOTTE E. RICKER’S ACCOUNT BUSHWHACKING ACROSS TWIN MOUNTAIN IN 1882, WHILE WEARING A VICTORIAN SKIRT. (“THE WILDERNESS: WILD PLACES AND RUGGED PEAKS FIRST VISITED BY WOMAN” WHITE MOUNTAIN ECHO.) STEVE SMITH JOHN PATRIQUIN, PORTLAND PRESS HERALD KELLI-ANNE CERINI Pre-European Colonization 1771 1809 1819 1826 1840 July 23, 1851 Native Americans develop trails in river corridors where highways Lancaster road agent Timothy Nash uses ropes to bring a horse Mineralogist George Gibbs arranges to have a path cut up Mount Abel Crawford and his son Ethan Allen Crawford cut a trail from The White Mountains leap into public imagination as a dangerous Abel Crawford is the first person to reach the summit of Mount Washington The first train pulls into the station in Gorham, opening up the east are today, following the Saco, Swift, Pemigewasset, Ammonoosuc, and barrel of rum through rugged Crawford Notch, validating the Washington, likely through Tuckerman Ravine. It is quickly eclipsed Crawford Notch to top of Mt. Washington. Two years later a frontier when an landslide rumbles down one side of Crawford on horseback following the original Crawford Path. Bridle paths are side of Mount Washington to hotel and trail development. Grand Androscoggin, Moose and Israel Rivers. commercial potential of a road linking upper Connecticut River by improvements in the western approach to the summit. second, more direct path is cut along the current route of the Notch and kills the Willey household of nine. Writers and artists developed on Mt. Moosilauke, Mt. Moriah, Mt. Willard, Mt. Pleasant, Bald Hotels, such as the Glen House in 1852, sponsor trail development Valley to Portland. Cog Railway which becomes the far more popular route. later burnish the allure of the White Mountains. Mt. in Franconia, Mt. Lafayette and Mt. Osceola. as a lure for visitors and revenue. MOVED BY MOUNTAINS For two centuries, the devoted trail builders of the White Mountains have made grandeur accessible to others. High productivity and esprit Hiker-Built Trails Deepen Pride of Place Outrage Culminates in New Trail-building Blitz began with Sherman Adams, CCC men jackhammer ledge the acknowledged leader of the on trail to Glen Ellis Falls. The 1919 crew, and was nurtured extended stone staircase is a Status for Trails Links Maine by mentorship of The Old fine example of the stone and Masters. Adams later became timberframe construction that Industrial scale logging obliterated trails, sometimes irretrievably, to Moosilauke a lumber company executive, is reverently referred to as New Hampshire governor and “CCC work.” beginning in the 1880s. The public was outraged by clearcuts as far RAYNER EDMANDS APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CLUB ARCHIVES chief of staff in the Eisenhower as the eyes could see and wild fires that burned for weeks. But it Linking local trail networks into a administration. took 30 years of agitation by citizens, preachers, local officials and single unified system began about TIME MAGAZINE finally industrialists to bring plunder to an end. 1910 and took nearly 20 years of Legendary Crew Keeps sustained, grueling exertion. The APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CLUB ARCHIVES final linkages through endlessly The leaders were four coat-and-tie professionals who its Mojo became known as “The Old Masters.” In this 1906 dense stretches of puckerbrush on photo, Brooklyn high school Latin teacher Paul Jenks Garfield Ridge, the Mahoosucs and is at far left, Boston lawyer Charles Blood is in the The AMC Trail Crew became renowned for an TRAIL CREW ASSOCIATION ARCHIVES TRAIL CREW ASSOCIATION ARCHIVES middle, and Dartmouth College librarian Nat Goodrich intense, high-spirited work ethic. How this WINDLOW HOMER, BROOKLYN MUSEUM Kinsman Ridge were among the is at far right. Missing is Wesleyan College Latin culture is continually replicated despite low pay, City Boys Build “There were long hours of continuous Rayner Edmands, an MIT-trained engineer, advocated gradual, engineered paths inspired by toughest miles in the Whites. professor Karl Harrington. Also pictured are George hammering at what seemed like an the burrow trails of western miners. “Always rising, never steeply,” was his motto. One of his Blaney and Albert Kent. spartan living conditions, and yearly turnover is impenetrable tangle of jackstraws, in an masterpieces is the Gulfside Trail, a granite sidewalk through talus slopes on Mount Adams. Durable Legacy effort to punch a six-foot hole for clearance,” perhaps worthy of a thesis paper. A confluence AMC Trailmaster Jack Hutton wrote in an of factors may contribute. Appalachia article about cleaning up after the SOCIETY FOR PRESERVATION OF For a brief span during the Depression, 1938 Hurricane. In this photo, Haven Fifield NEW HAMPSHIRE FORESTS How Rugged Should a Trail Be? Crew life reinforces the mountaineer’s the White Mountain echoed with the pauses while clearing blowdowns on Kinsman ethos that nature’s grandeur is often Ridge Trail. The AMC effort was dwarfed by A lively debate sprung up at the end of the 19th century experienced as an ordeal. Crew sounds of chopping, sawing, shoveling the 1,400 men that the CCC mobilized. between advocates of gentle paths and advocates of members pull on wet boots in the morning or sweat all day in a cloud and hammering. The jobless multitudes strenuous scrambles. This great age of trail building AMC TRAIL CREW ARCHIVES of black flies knowing they might that entered the Civilian Conservation Enrollees revolved around the Ravine House in Randolph, a lodging be lucky enough to sleep under the learned axe Before 1923, AMC Trail stars that night with a meteor shower Corps were mostly unskilled city boys, skills in house with a buoyant social scene.

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