Summiting Mount Washington more than 200 years ago took a lot more effort than it does today. Hiking trails were nonexistent and GPS apps were unfathomable luxuries to early explorers, who navigated the White Mountains with nothing more than grit and an unflappable Yankee stubbornness. In the name of science, these intrepid souls wrestled through seemingly impenetrable swaths of spruce and fir forests to reach the highest peak in New England, researching every plant, rock, and animal along the way. Those endeavoring to summit Washington were on their own lest they hired a local guide who knew the few, lightly trodden routes through the deep, dark forests.
The most notable guides in the early 1800s were Abel Crawford and his son Ethan Allen. Originally from Vermont, the Crawford’s operated inns on each side of Crawford Notch, then known as the “Gateway,” where they catered to tradesmen traveling the rugged mountain road (Route 302) through the notch delivering goods from Portland, Maine, to northern Vermont and New Hampshire. As the once rough, wheel-breaking carriage road improved with the Crawford’s help, more tourists began to seek out the remote hinterlands of northern New Hampshire in search of adventure and respite from the smog-filled industrial cities. The Crawford’s caught wind of this burgeoning cultural shift and set out to capitalize on this new recreation trend.
In 1819, the two entrepreneurs began working on a blazed trail that, although would be relocated in sections over the next two centuries, is considered to be the oldest continuously maintained hiking trail in the country. Beginning just north of the present day Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) Highland Center, where Ethan’s younger brother, Thomas J. Crawford, would eventually open a third inn in 1828, the crude footpath was an upgrade from the bushwhack routes, though even Abel struggled at times to keep him and his paying clients on course. The trail gained popularity over the years and so too did the Crawford’s mountain hospitality and guiding services. In 1840, the family widened and leveled the trail to accommodate equestrian travel, and as it happened, seventy-four-year-old Abel became the first person to ride horseback to Washington’s summit.
Fast forward 200 years, and the Crawford’s inns have all but vanished, but the family’s legacy still endures. Their namesake path attracts thousands of hikers every year, surpassing visitor numbers that even Abel and Ethan probably anticipated. To add to its international recognition, nearly 5.5 miles of the trail, running from mounts Pierce to Washington, are part of the 2,200-mile Appalachian National Scenic Trail. This section traverses above 4,000 feet in elevation through an ecologically sensitive alpine habitat home to many rare plants and animals. In recent decades, an increase in visitor use and major storm events have contributed to the deterioration of the trail’s infrastructure and biological features.
To remedy these issues, the United States Forest Service (USFS), the agency responsible for maintaining the Crawford Path, joined forces with nine trail organizations last summer to tackle a laundry list of overdue maintenance work on the 8.5-mile-long trail. The two-year project, slated to finish this fall, not only commemorates the trail’s 200th anniversary this year it also kick-offed a new regional collaboration among recreation and conservation organizations known as the White Mountain Trail Collective (WMTC). Conceived by a small group of volunteers and a handful of USFS staff members, WMTC’s mission is to support trail projects and maintainers through funding, trainings, resources, and volunteer engagement (see sidebar). WMTC saw the Crawford Path project as a perfect way to bring together trail clubs and organizations from across New England to work together on one trail, sharing best practices, ideas, and resources to make a substantial impact on a high-profile trail in a relatively short time. “This kick-off project was about celebrating the longevity of maintaining the Crawford Path for 200 years on the landscape,” says Tiffany Benna, USFS public services staff officer and a founder of WMTC. “It not only celebrates the path’s history, but it also celebrates the maintainers who have kept trails like the Crawford Path on the landscape for so long.” The project was funded by a $200,000 donation from REI through the National Forest Foundation, who then granted these funds to WMTC, and donations of services and money from other foundations and organizations.
Every year, trail clubs hire and train their own volunteer and paid crews to maintain trails in defined regions of the White Mountains. This divide-and-conquer method tends to work for clubs on a general maintenance level, but when it comes to tackling expensive, time-consuming projects, some clubs struggle to find enough money and workers to get projects off the ground. This is where WMTC aims to help. “Not all clubs are the same size and have the same ability to manage money,” says Benna. “Some clubs feel overwhelmed with raising money for projects, but could still could use these funds for labor and materials. So, the idea of the collective is to help every organization and bolster them where they’re at.”
As the Crawford’s probably noticed during their trail blazing days two centuries ago, footpaths aren’t something you build and walk away from forever. Without the efforts of trail clubs, large and small, trails in the White Mountains would not be in the condition they are today. Talk to any trail crew director, and you’ll discover that most organizations hold a couple of trails they maintain closer to their hearts than others in part because of their history, construction, and scenic features. Some of these trails were created more than a century ago while others were built in recent years, but despite their age, they all tell a story that every hiker can appreciate.
When it comes to picking his favorite trails, Zack Urgese, AMC’s White Mountain trail supervisor, has a lot to choose from. The organization maintains 350 miles of hiking trails in the White Mountains, the most miles of any trail club in New Hampshire. Founded in 1867, AMC is the oldest recreation and conservation nonprofit in the country. Many of the trails built in the late 1800s were created by AMC’s founders, who scoured the region seeking natural attractions—scenic vistas, waterfalls, and other curiosities—to build trails to. Early pathmakers paid little attention to installing drainages in the trails, called water bars, which displace water off the trail and prevent soil erosion. Instead, trails were cut steeply up the fall line of a mountain, making it easier for water to flow down and exasperating soil erosion, exposing the roots and rocks seen on myriad trails today. “[Trail work] is a lot about water,” notes Urgese with a chuckle. “The old saying goes, ‘Keep the trail out of water or water off the trail.’”
One of Urgese’s favorite trails in the White Mountains sees a barrage of rain, snow, ice, and wind—conditions that pick trails apart piece by piece. Located at around 5,600 feet above sea level and entirely above treeline on the west side of Mount Washington’s summit cone, the aptly named Westside Trail was created in the 1890s by one of AMC’s founders and one-time president, J. Rayner Edmands. After hiking on graded pack stock trails in Colorado, Edmands returned to New Hampshire a staunch believer in constructing trails with gentle grades and meticulously placed stones. His innovative ideas ruffled the feathers of other leading trail builders at the time, but he was undeterred by their lack of support and continued building trails in a style that had never been seen before in the White Mountains. “The rock work and grade on this trail is really impressive,” says Urgese. “It’s an old trail, but it’s in pretty good shape considering where it lives and the amount of use it gets.” For a less-demanding approach to this featured trail, hikers could opt to take the Auto Road or Cog Railway to Mount Washington’s summit to start their above treeline tour.
Another favorite trail of Urgese’s that AMC built and maintains is the 4.1-mile Osseo Trail, which connects the Lincoln Woods Trail with the Franconia Ridge Trail. The original Osseo Trail, opened in 1905 by the North Woodstock Improvement Association, began on Route 112 near Loon Mountain and climbed over Mount Osseo, or Whaleback Mountain, before connecting to the Franconia Ridge Trail. As the town of Lincoln grew in recent decades, the trail was abandoned in the early 1980s because of condominium construction at its trailhead. Opened in 1983, the new Osseo Trail follows parts of the route of the East Branch & Lincoln Narrow Gauge Line, a failed experiment in the early 1900s by lumber baron J.E. Henry to use narrow gauge rails for hauling logs out of the woods. Further up the trail hikers will start to see where AMC took considerable time and effort to construct a durable trail that is well equipped to take on the worst weather conditions. Hikers will appreciate the moderate grade and trail structures in place, rock steps and wooden ladders, that make the Osseo Trail an easier and more enjoyable approach trail to Franconia Ridge compared to the trails on the Route 93 side.
On the east side of the White Mountains in Maine’s Grafton Notch, hikers will find one of the newest trails AMC has designed and built, which Urgese calls a “premier trail.” Completed in 2007, the 39-mile Grafton Loop Trail was created to offer a multi-day backpacking experience where the wilderness reigns and the crowds are minimal. Working with an undeveloped, trail-less landscape, save for the northern end, where the trail overlaps with the Appalachian Trail, AMC and other partners were able to showcase their trail-building and campsite design prowess. “We took the lessons that we learned about trail design and grades, and employed [these techniques] on this project,” notes Urgese. If you don’t have time to hike the whole loop, Urgese recommends spending a night at Slide Mountain Campsite to set up for a hike of 3,335-foot Sunday River Whitecap. Even though it lacks 4,000-footer status, Whitecap boasts expansive, 360-degree views and a summit blanketed in alpine vegetation. AMC trail crews went to great lengths to build elevated boardwalks on the summit to protect the fragile vegetation from being trampled on by hikers.
Shifting from one historic trail club to another, the Randolph Mountain Club (RMC), based out of the small village of Randolph, N.H., was established in 1910 in response to the devastation of the club’s trails in the Northern Presidentials due to unchecked logging. Bob Drescher, RMC’s trails co-chair, says that before J. Rayner Edmands would go on to build the Westside Trail on Mount Washington, he was hard at work laying out trails in Randolph in the 1880s and ‘90s. By the turn of the century though, Edmands had seen enough logging destruction, and in 1903 he moved his trail-building operations from Randolph to Bretton Woods to continue working on trails in the Southern Presidentials. Edmands would leave behind a trail system that would later be restored by the RMC and is still maintained by the club today. His trademark graded trails and exquisite rock work can be seen throughout RMC’s 100-mile trail network, including Drescher’s favorite, the Gulfside Trail. Edmands seemed to have a flair for designing trails above treeline, as the entire trail is in the fragile alpine zone. “The Gulfside Trail deserves special attention [in the Northern Presidentials],” says Drescher. “Here is one of the early attempts at trail work in the White Mountains, and Edmands nailed it.” Drescher’s favorite section is about a mile in length running from the Airline Trail junction to Thunderstorm Junction. Edmands’s “flat-as-a-pancake” rock work confounds Drescher as to how he managed to set hundreds of large, unyielding rocks perfectly in place without the trail tools that are available today. While most hikers are captivated by the views in this section and not by the trail design, Drescher encourages hikers to slow down and study the intricacies of Edmands’s work.
Edmands’s departure from Randolph in the early 1900s left the door open for other aspiring trail builders to make their mark in the area. Known more for his mapmaking skills, Louis F. Cutter, one of RMC’s founders, began creating “pleasure trails” in the 1930s that Drescher says are still in great shape despite their age. Running from the Howker Ridge Trail to the Brookside Trail, the Kelton Trail lives up to its name as a pleasure trail featuring good footing, stunning views of Mount Adams, and a 33-step rock staircase that impresses Drescher every time he climbs it. “The treads and the risers on this staircase are just perfect,” he says. “You couldn’t draw it up any better than this, especially in the backcountry.” Drescher says him and a friend happened upon the staircase one afternoon when they accidentally kicked up a pile of leaves while hiking, uncovering the moss-laden staircase hidden beneath the fallen foliage. Hikers can find Cutter’s impressive staircase no more than a half-mile in from the Howker Ridge Trail junction as the trail climbs to Kelton Crag. In addition to the splendid views had from the Overlook and Upper Inlook, located about a half mile up the trail from the staircase, Drescher says it’s worth hiking the Kelton Trail just to see this piece of trail-work history frozen in time.
As trail building in the White Mountains continued to flourish in the 1920s and ‘30s, more clubs were incorporated, including the Chatham Trails Association (CTA), which was established in 1922 with a mission of preserving and building new trails in Evans Notch. Straddling the Maine–New Hampshire border, the Cold River Valley is home to a quiet trail system that rarely garners the attention that the trails in Crawford and Pinkham notches do. “Quote by Mike about why CTA differ from other trails in the Whites],” says Mike Zlogar, CTA trail master since 2005. From the scenic Bicknell Ridge Trail to the short-but-sweet Deer Hills Trail, Zlogar has an affinity for all 40 miles of trails that the club maintains. But for those looking to hike on a CTA trail that showcases some of the club’s recent work, Zlogar suggests the Stone House Trail, which starts off Stone House Road 1.3 miles north of AMC’s Cold River Camp on Route 113. In 2018, CTA partnered with the Forest Service and the Student Conservation Association to relocate nearly a half-mile of trail around a steep, heavily eroded section toward the summit of Blueberry Mountain. Zlogar says the trail was constructed to Forest Service standards providing a comfortable grade for hikers and minimizing the need for water drainages or staircases. These improvements lead him to believe that the trail won’t be appreciated by your eyes as much as your legs. “Hikers usually don’t notice good trails,” notes Zlogar. “They only notice the bad ones.” After appreciating all the work that went into creating this new section of trail, hikers can take in the views from Blueberry Mountain or, you guessed it, forage for wild blueberries in late summer. Cap off your outing with a refreshing dip in Rattlesnake Pool on your return trip to your car.
As trail maintenance needs continue to grow and funding sources dwindle, Urgese, Drescher, and Zlogar all agree that to preserve the region’s aging trail system, the White Mountain Trail Collective’s innovative model of funding, training, and resources has the potential to address the needs that clubs have had for years but haven’t been able to fulfill. “The Chatham Trail Association is on top of our basic trail maintenance, but we’re limited by volunteer time and we can’t afford the tools required for more technical trail work,” notes Zlogar. “By borrowing tools from the collective, I can see our club doing more work with this special equipment in the future.”
With more than 1,200 miles of hiking trails in the White Mountain National Forest to maintain, most requiring the same level of labor and trail work mastery as seen on the Crawford Path, the Grafton Loop Trail, the Gulfside Trail, and others, the WMTC’s mission to realign trail stewardship into a collaborative effort aims to have every trail club, organization, and volunteer “rowing in the same direction” to protect and preserve what the Crawford’s and many other trail builders have left behind for our and future generations to protect and enjoy. “It’s the right time for the trail collective to emerge,” says Brenna of the Forest Service. “They can be that backbone for anyone who needs help on their trails. There’s a lot of energy in the trails world right now and it’s very cool.”
A Collective Effort
The White Mountain Trail Collective (WMTC) was conceived in 2017 with a multi-pronged mission of creating an overarching nonprofit that could fundraise money for large-scale, multiyear recreation trail projects in the White Mountain Region and provide partner trail clubs and organizations with skill-based trainings. In 2018, WMTC launched its first project on the 200-year-old Crawford Path. Led by Cristin Bailey of the Forest Service on a one-year detail, WMTC worked together with nine different trail-maintaining organizations from New Hampshire and Vermont, including the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Randolph Mountain Club, and the Dartmouth Outing Club, to repair 9.3 miles of the Crawford Path, restore 1.5 acres of wildlife habitat, and mobilize 155 volunteers who contributed nearly 3,500 hours to the project.
This summer, Bailey returned to other Forest Service duties, and WMTC hired subcontractor Matt Coughlan, owner of Recon Trail Design LLC, as the 2019 Crawford Path project manager. Coughlan has already hit the ground running, hiring 13 different crews to work on the path this summer and scheduling trainings. Crews will conduct a variety of trail work, including constructing rock staircases and drainages and building rock scree walls, which prevent hikers from walking off trail on the fragile alpine vegetation.
A collaborative project like the Crawford Path also allows crews to exchange valuable ideas and best practices and to learn from some of the top trail builders in the business. These skills can then be brought back to the clubs and shared, adding to the wealth of trail-maintaining knowledge disseminated throughout the White Mountains. In addition to trainings, clubs and organizations will have the opportunity to borrow WMTC equipment, including heavy-duty grip hoists and large tripods for moving rocks in the alpine zone, if clubs don’t have the funds available to purchase these specialized items.
Funding for the Crawford Path project came from a $200,000 donation from REI through the National Forest Foundation, who then granted this money to WMTC. REI actively works with nonprofits to steward and maintain local trails and public lands and connect people to the outdoors. The outdoor retail co-operative, who plans to open a store in North Conway in September, annually gives more than 70 percent of its profits back to the outdoor community.
In 2020, WMTC will set its sights on the Mount Washington Valley. Coughlin plans to discuss hiking, biking, and ski trail projects with stakeholders in the North Conway area that would benefit the region and may not get achieved otherwise. Once the projects are confirmed, WMTC will hire and pay regional trail crews to come out for trainings and perform the work. “I feel like this collaborative model is the next generation of achieving large-scale conservation projects,” says Coughlin. “There’s no other organization that I know of that’s using regional resources and a collaborative approach. I’m really excited to be part of the Collective and to see where it goes.”
This feature story originally appeared in the 2019 summer issue of Mount Washington Vibe Magazine.