Nature and Culture in the Northern Forest: Region, Heritage, and Environment in the Rural Northeast

A Traverse of the Presidential Range with the Scottish Highlands on My Mind

One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of seeing things. —Henry Miller W ith all due respect to Henry Miller, a hike in the White Mountains is sometimes all about destination as a place. When young, I once labored up and over Tuckerman’s Ravine , my mind’s eye steadfastly fixed on the summit of Mount Washington looming above. On other outings, I remember being more enamored with my travel route, like completing the airy walk along the trail that straddles Franconia Ridge. There was the time I led a group of boy scouts on a bushwhack hike with map and compass to one of the trailless peaks in the Sandwich Range. Way-finding was the objective there. And then, during a deep winter cold snap, a sense of purpose drove us to attempt a bivouac at Greely Ponds, testing our teenage mettle as we laid our sleeping bags in depressions in the snow. Stargazing and Northern Lights became our evening entertainment. Some journeys start with a specific destination in mind, but the focus then becomes the route taken or the lessons learned along the way. Strongly held notions are challenged as new ways of seeing things are A Traverse of the Presidential Range with the Scottish Highlands on My Mind riChard paradis 188 • rethiNkiNg plaCe revealed. This particular journey begins with an early morning drive from my home in central Vermont to the mountains of northern New Hampshire. I park my car along Route 2 at a place called Appalachia, nothing more than a large gravel lot west of the sedate and gentrified mountain village of Randolph. This location often serves as the starting or ending point for those wishing to explore the Presidential Range of the White Mountains. The lot is nearly full, with assorted license plates indicating that the majority of the hikers parked here hail from out-ofstate , southern New England for the most part. I wait patiently for a scheduled shuttle bus to arrive. The day is cool and fresh with blue sky, few clouds, and low humidity for the middle of July. Visibility should be fine from the summits, an all too rare occurrence as these mountains tend to make their own weather. A bus finally pulls into the parking lot and slows to a dusty stop. Approaching it, I realize it is jammed full of hikers and their assorted equipment with no one intending to disembark here. The driver informs me that another bus should be along in about an hour. Disappointed, I settle in under a tall spruce tree, get out a map of the area, and study the trail. My plans are to leave the car and take the bus to the other side of these mountains. This will allow me to complete a traverse of the Presidential Range and end up back here in a couple of days. These mountains, not terribly tall by comparison with other ranges in the world, nonetheless inspired me while growing up in the Northern Forest. Visions of bagging all of the 4,000-footers and completing a through-hike of the Appalachian Trail occupied much of my imagination as a youth. I continue to log considerable mileage in pursuit of the personal elation experienced during a mountain ramble. I now follow my professional interests in alpine natural history and conservation while out on the trail. Many of my explorations focus on the ecological health of these mountain landscapes and the performance of those entrusted with their conservation and stewardship. On this particular journey, I want to experience a popular hiking route in the White Mountains during the busy summer season and stay at overnight facilities along the way. I admit that one of the challenges to my sense of natural landscape integrity and wilderness aesthetics has been the system of huts strung out through the White Mountains and maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club. These “backcountry hotels” strike me as inappropriate structures in remote mountainous set- a traverse oF the presideNtial raNge • 189 tings. They also appear to attract a certain class of patrons who can afford to utilize them.1 That the huts are private affairs operated on our public lands doesn’t help matters much. My personal practice over the years has been to quietly avoid them, preferring the thriftiness of an overnight stay in a small tent or an overcrowded shelter. Principled misery trumps...