Episode 195 - Search and Rescues in the White Mountains, Mount Liberty, History of the White Mountains - 1920s

[00:00:08] Here is the latest Higher Summits forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mount Washington Observatory. Weather above treeline in the White Mountains is often wildly different than at our trailheads. Before you hike, check the Higher Summits forecast at mountwashington.org.

[00:00:31] Weather observers working at the non-profit Mount Washington Observatory write this elevation-based forecast every morning and afternoon. Search and Rescue teams, avalanche experts, and backcountry guides all rely on the Higher Summits forecast to anticipate weather conditions above treeline.

[00:00:51] You should too. Go to mountwashington.org or text FORECAST to 603-356-2137. Hi everybody, Nick here with your forecast for the weekend of May 10th, 2025. Friday, in the clouds with rain potentially falling heavy at times in the afternoon.

[00:01:21] High, in the upper 30s. Wind, south at 30-45 mph with gusts up to 50 mph. Increasing to 45-60 mph with gusts up to 70 mph. Windchill rising to 20-30 above. Friday night, in the clouds with rain potentially falling heavily at times after midnight. Low, mid-30s. Wind, south at 45-60 mph with gusts up to 70 mph. Decreasing to 30-45 mph.

[00:01:50] Windchill falling to 15-25 above. Saturday, in the clouds with rain likely, tapering to rain showers in the late afternoon. High, in the upper 30s. Falling to the lower 30s. Wind, south, shifting northwest at 30-45 mph early. 10-25 mph midday. And 45-60 mph with gusts up to 70 mph later. Windchill rising to 20-30 above. Then falling to 10-20 above.

[00:02:17] Looks like we've got another not fantastic weather weekend in the whites. Keeping the streak going. Stay safe out there. Have fun. Have a great weekend.

[00:03:07] From the Woodpecker's studio in the great live free or die state of New Hampshire. Welcome to the Sounds Like a Search and Rescue podcast. Where we discuss all things related to hiking and search and rescue in the white mountains of New Hampshire and beyond.

[00:03:46] Live here, Nick. So, welcome to episode 195. How have you been? I'm doing well, Mike. How are you doing? I'm dried off. Oh, that's good. Did you get caught in the rain? Yeah. Well, we'll talk about that later. Okay. Okay. Interesting. I've dried off from Sunday. Oh, yes. Sunday we got circumwet. Yeah. It's been a pain with it being rainy out. It took a really long time for my boots and I actually had my trail runners out on the deck this morning. Finally drying out. But yeah, we'll talk more about that later. Yeah.

[00:04:16] I had my trail runners next to my dehumidifier. So, that helped help. But yeah, I just got back. We're doing a late recording here. Usually we record around 630, but we're recording at 830 right now. Because I was just out. I actually already had a beer tonight, Nick. So, I'm not going to be drinking anything but water. All right. I just have a seltzer. So, you're already lubricated. You're ready to roll. We got our notes. Yes. But yeah, we are ready. Yeah, you got to do it. You got to do what you got to do. We got to keep that content train churning for everybody.

[00:04:46] We do. We do. So, I wanted to start off with a little bit of music talk. So, we had said that. So, with Nick joining us now, they used to do segments about music on the PUDS podcast. And I think we tried to do a segment two or three episodes ago. And it failed miserably because there's a generational issue with what music I'm into and what music Nick is into.

[00:05:13] But Nick put together a little bit of a music thing here. So, we're going to start the show off with a little bit of information about what is Nick listening to music-wise right now? Yeah. So, if you're familiar with PUDS podcast, I used to do the Nick's Music Moment. And a lot of times, it was just whatever album I was listening to. A lot of times, it's whatever I'm kind of listening to running. I usually go running a few times a week during lunch. So, picking stuff that kind of goes with that.

[00:05:38] So, for tonight's album, we have the album, I'm Not Afraid of Music Anymore by the band COIN. For whatever reason, too, when you see COIN's band name, it's always in all caps, C-O-I-N. And this came out in 2024. So, it's a pretty fresh album. So, COIN is an American pop rock band formed in 2012 in Nashville, Tennessee. So, from down south. And this was their fifth studio album.

[00:06:06] And kind of by its title, you might kind of be getting the vibe. But basically, it was a wake-up call to the band to embrace having fun playing music and creating albums again. It sounds like they had maybe gotten to sort of a creative block, if you will. And I guess not enjoying producing music. I've never been in a position to write a full album before. But I can imagine it probably can be a little daunting when bands get into those record contracts. And they sort of get these deadlines to sort of churn on music because they're musicians. That's what they do.

[00:06:33] But it sounds like they went a little bit back to their roots in trying to just sort of have fun creating this. And I think you can see it on this album. And I did want to freely admit, I'm not super familiar with this band. I've heard some of their songs on the radio. Ended up downloading this album and really kind of caught my ear. In my opinion, it's a really solid album front to back. It's 14 tracks. I don't think there's really a weak track on it. Some of the tracks that stood out the most to me personally were Take It or Leave It, Along for the Ride, Blueberry Smoothie, Olivia, Growing Song.

[00:07:02] And the closing track, Leaving a Light On, is awesome. Really, really enjoy that last song. I think it's a very fitting ending. And it was funny when I was digging up through their sort of Wikipedia and stuff. And maybe this just this happens to me like all the time where I find bands that I like and then apparently they've been disbanded. But yeah, they were recently disbanded by their lead singer, Chase Lawrence, due to misconduct allegations against their drummer and their guitarist in January of 2025. So that was what did they misconduct?

[00:07:31] I believe the drummer was maybe abusing his his ex-girlfriend or something like that. And the guitarist, I believe, was caught sending photos to minors. So that was that was sort of a downer on sort of their album history. But at least the lead singer sort of stood up and I guess released a statement on social media being like, yeah, we're not going to be a band anymore. We're not touring. I'm not going to stay and continue with these guys making music. So the lead singer dropped them. But the lead singer is kind of he's clean as far as correct. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:00] As far as everybody's aware. So that was kind of one, I guess. I mean, it's it's awful when those things happen, but I guess it was good that at least the singer stopped it because maybe he didn't really know what was going on. I mean, it's that's a whole ball of wax when you get musicians and probably the stuff that even any sort of famous artists kind of get away with. So kind of good on him for like discontinuing like a big canceled a bunch of tour dates and stuff like that. But everything in that sort of negative lining aside, I did really enjoy this album.

[00:08:29] So I'm so I'm not afraid of music anymore for released in twenty twenty four. Yep. Okay, I will check it out for sure. Cool. So and I have a little bit to add here. So I just recently added a new song that I probably should have been aware of because I've seen this guy live in concert before. But Teddy swims is he's got the song called the door, which is a pretty good jam. All right, Mike. I'll have to check that out. I recommend that it's a little bit of a newer album.

[00:08:59] Here. So anyway, this is a hiking podcast, Nick. So we're going to get back to hiking here. And I want to welcome you to episode one ninety five of the sounds like a search and rescue podcast this week. Search and rescue is back in the news in New Hampshire. So we've had a bunch of new events here. So we've got recent incidents on Kilkenny Ridge, the Skookum Chuck Trail and the Lincoln Brook Trail. So we'll fill you in on all the details there. Plus, we've got some tick season reminders.

[00:09:29] We've got the story of a hunter who accidentally shot his friend after after them getting separated. Always love those stories, Nick. It's old man on the mountain day coming up. Yay. A hiker gets rescued on Mount Fuji and he loses his phone during the first rescue and decides to go back for it, which triggers another rescue incident for this guy. You can't catch a break. Classic. Plus, we've got a hiking boot review.

[00:09:55] We've got a discussion about hiking umbrellas, the pros and cons of using them. And we'll talk about how Nick was super jealous that he did not have an umbrella this weekend. I was. Plus, a recap of a recent hike to Mount Liberty via Liberty Springs Trail, which will include rain and a sketchy water crossing. We've got the history of the planning and construction of the Greenleaf Hut and how it used to be that you could get projects completed a lot quicker and a lot cheaper than you can today.

[00:10:25] Plus, we've got some trail name and mountain naming history. So, I'm Mike. And I'm Nick. Let's get started. Let's get started! All right, Nick. So, let's begin with our friend Christina from Wild Raven Endurance Coaching. So, Christina, take it away.

[00:10:57] Hi, I'm Christina from Wild Raven Endurance Coaching. I work with athletes of all levels from hikers to triathletes, helping you reach your goals with personalized guidance. With years of experience hiking, mountain biking, and trail running across New England, I also have a deep knowledge of the New Hampshire 4,000 footers and the surrounding trails.

[00:11:21] Whether you're a beginner hiker or a seasoned athlete, I'll guide you towards your goals, reducing injury risk and improving your performance through smart, tailored coaching. Are you looking to transition from hiking to mountain running? I'm here to make that journey easier, too. My approach combines strength training, mindfulness, and life balance on and off the trail. Let me help you find more joy in your sport while getting stronger and healthier along the way.

[00:11:48] Visit www.coaching.christinafulsick.com and start your adventure today. All right, Nick. So, if any of the listeners want to get in shape, reach out to Christina. She'll take care of you. Absolutely. Tis the season. We've got summer right on the horizon. Things are finally starting to warm up. The snow is finally starting to melt, at least most places. Depends where you go. True. But yeah, good time to get in shape.

[00:12:18] It is. It is. I just want to call out here. I don't know if you put this on the script or if Stomp did this and helped us out. This was a Stomp insert, I believe. It was. All right. So, Bear Notch Road is officially opened, which is a good sign. So... And that's the cut through from where Bartlett is, like 302 to the kank, right? Correct. Okay. Yeah. So, there's the only real...

[00:12:45] So, the one trailhead that you would utilize Bear Notch Road to is to get to Table Mountain, which is on the 52 with a view. So, that's sort of the backside of if you go across the Aditash range, you can connect with that trailhead. So, it's really that trailhead is linked at about five or six car spots, I think. But it's one that you need to utilize if you're going to go up to Table Mountain on the 52 with a view list. Gotcha.

[00:13:13] And then here, I did read that... I'm looking at Trails of New Hampshire here, which is our friend's Rex Kimball's site here. And I'm just looking at this and he's got... Evans Notch Road is supposed to open, but the problem with this one is that I think they're doing paving there.

[00:13:41] So, that is probably not going to open, I think, until the end of the month. And then, you know, we'll keep an eye on the rest of them. But the only one that I really know for sure that's opened is Bear Notch Road. Okay. So, keep an eye on that. And then, we want to include a reminder. Stomp always puts a reminder in here that it is the beginning of tick season. So, just be aware of that and make sure that you... If you want to treat your clothes with permethrin, you can do that.

[00:14:12] And I generally advise people to make sure you stay out of tall grass. And I do a lot of rock hopping, Nick, to avoid. Do you have a particular technique that you use to avoid ticks? I generally try to wear bug spray or some... Not permethrin, but there's a couple of different... Deet, I think. Yeah, you can use deet in a couple of different things. This is actually a good segue. I didn't... It wasn't a deer tick, but I actually was running today and I stepped off the road maybe once to just avoid a car.

[00:14:41] And I was looking on my shoulder when I was walking back home and I had a tick on my right shoulder. So, you got to... There's definitely the season. I know like you... Generally, I believe if you just walk by high grass, they actually like hop. They jump, which is kind of crazy to attach themselves to deer and other passers-bys. But yeah, just... I'm glad Stomp Pilot because Lyme disease is really nasty. And you do need to be careful this time of year, especially in fields. Like you said, any kind of high brush like that. I used to do a lot of fishing around here and really had to watch out for them.

[00:15:09] Best way you can do is just avoid those sort of environmental areas where you think they might be. Yeah, I feel like your area too where you are is like that. Oh yeah. That's ground zero for ticks. Yeah, Southeast Masses. Definitely, definitely a lot of deer around here. So, hence a lot of deer ticks, unfortunately. Yes. Yeah. So, Stomp recommends using a lint roller as well. Okay. If you're going out. I've actually used duct tape.

[00:15:37] So, I have duct tape wrapped around my hiking poles and occasionally I'll just grab a piece of duct tape and just sort of like hit my legs and make my way all the way up on either side of my leg to just see if I can pick up any ticks off of me. Yeah, one of my good rules of thumb, I mean, it probably depends on the pressure of your shower as well, but just taking a shower or whatever after you do those activities a lot of times. Like number one, you're going to, you're going to see yourself probably in the mirror, at least catch yourself, maybe your shoulders or things like that.

[00:16:03] And I find that usually you'll kind of tend to avoid them or at least see them that way. And a lot of times too, with like deer ticks, they have to be on you, I believe for up to 48 hours to really transmit disease. So, a lot of times if you're out, it's more difficult if you're out camping, I think probably, and you're not going to be maybe changing your clothes or things like that for extended periods of time. But that's kind of, that's kind of my rule of thumb. Yeah, yeah. And this time of the year is particularly dangerous because the ticks are even smaller.

[00:16:32] Then as the season goes on, I think they get a little bit bigger, a little easier to spot, but the right now they're absolutely tiny. They can literally look like a speck of dirt. Yep. Yeah. A lot of times when I've seen a deer tick, this is probably a few years back when I was doing a little bit more trout fishing, but one of the first times I saw one and it had been a while, I actually thought it was like a freckle like on my neck. And then go to try to pull it off and you're like, oh crap. And it wasn't in me or anything yet. And it was, it was still on the surface. So I was good. But, but yeah, very, very small.

[00:17:01] I think unless you've had one on you before, you might not realize how tiny a deer tick is. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well stay safe out there, folks. It's, it's, it's that time of the year when you got to worry about ticks, you got to worry about bugs and you know, we'll, we'll, we'll keep, keep talking about it. We got some tips and tricks to avoid it. Um, so Nick, I know you're a fisherman. Do you ever go hunting? Nope. Never, never have done any hunting. Um, nor was raised with any hunters in my family. What about you, Mike?

[00:17:30] Uh, yeah. So I have never, I haven't done much hunting. Like my brother's a big hunter. I've got a bunch of friends that are, that are hunters. I did do some hunting when I was in college a little bit, but, um, I'm, I, I don't, uh, I don't do anything at this point. It's really doesn't appeal to me because there's a lot of sitting around as far as I can tell. It's another reason why I don't go fishing is because this is just too much sitting around, not enough action.

[00:17:55] So fair point. Uh, also the, the problem with hunting is that occasionally you can get shot by your friends. Not, not good.

[00:18:02] I, I know a lot of hunters that like, I hear stories of people that are like, they, they go hunting, they go out to New Hampshire, they go to Maine and they all get drunk and then weapons are fired and the craziness happens. So I'm not into it. Um, but I, I did want to bring this up because there was a story that happened on May 1st of, uh, two friends that were turkey hunting, which doesn't seem like very difficult to me. Like we have turkeys rocking around my neighborhood.

[00:18:30] You know, all you had to do is feed them. So the old people feed them. I don't know what they feed them, but they seem to flock around. So it doesn't seem that difficult. But, um, these two gentlemen were turkey hunting and one of them suffered a gunshot injury. Not good. After. Yeah, I guess after successfully harvesting one turkey, they decided to begin hunting in a different area and they got separated from one another and they were on the opposite side of it.

[00:19:00] I feel like this is like the violation of like the most basic rule when you're hunting is like, don't make, don't separate. And then number two is if you do separate, like don't be across the field from each other where you might shoot each other. Yeah. It seems like there was probably a couple, again, I'm not a hunter, but yeah, you'd think to make sure that nobody is behind said turkey that you're aiming and firing at.

[00:19:23] Right. Yeah. So they, they had killed one turkey earlier and then clearly the turkeys decided that they were going to conspire to get their revenge because smartly the turkey that was a lot decided that, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to walk in between these two hunters.

[00:19:41] And, and then when, um, one hunter decided to fire a shot pellets from the shotgun shell continued beyond the turkey and struck the hunter in the face and the upper torso torso. So he suffered multiple wounds and there's no details on whether or not the turkey survived, but I'm going to think Nick that the turkey survived and got his revenge on behalf of his friend. He ran. That got killed earlier and then ran off into the woods.

[00:20:11] Ran away making his little kind of noise and he was happy. That's right. Yes. Yep. And this happened in Madison, New Hampshire up by North Conway. So don't mess with turkeys, Nick. They're intelligent birds. Isn't that, that's the old saying is that didn't Benjamin Franklin want the turkey to be this, the, uh, the national bird for the U.S. way back? Cause it was really intelligent compared to a bald eagle. I must've missed that day in class.

[00:20:37] Yeah. That's what I heard. I'm stick, I'm sticking with my story anyways. All right. Well, um, yeah, I didn't know turkeys was smart. I didn't, I didn't know that. Apparently. Okay. Um, apparently I'm not, I'm going to have to follow this up. I'm going to have to follow this up for next week now. All right. You do it. Do a deep dive.

[00:21:21] All right. So we've got some search and rescue news here, Nick. So I figured I'd pull these forward and talk about them now because there's like three, I think there's three cases here. So, and there's a lot of themes like there's, there's the, um, there's a water crossing situation here. There's a underestimating the snow depth and conditions. Yep.

[00:21:43] And then there is a directional issue here, which, which we commonly see. So I'll start with the first one, which is Heiko was rescued from the Kilkenny Ridge. So Nick, you and I are going to be doing a Kilkenny Ridge traverse, I think in July with our friends. So you have, you, have you done a Kilkenny? No, no, I've not been between, uh, or I should say past Wombeck or until Cabot, right. Is where it heads up. Correct. Yeah. I mean, I've done that.

[00:22:11] Does it end at like unknown pond, I guess the Kilkenny Ridge trail? South pond, South pond. South. Oh, right. It goes all the way past Rogers ledge. So yeah, I've done, so I just haven't done the section from basically wherever it, when it meets, there's a bundle notch trail from Kilkenny Ridge. And like you're heading up towards, towards Cabot, towards Cabot, my accent's coming out towards Cabot, um, til Kilkenny Ridge trail, um, for bundle notch.

[00:22:36] So that section basically of the Kilkenny Ridge trail from Wombeck to there, I have not done, but I've done basically out to Rogers ledge. I've gone to like the horn, um, in like the bulge from the other side and whatnot. And, um, so I've done a good chunk of it, but I haven't done that middle section, I guess. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the, basically where this rescue happened is the weeks. Exactly. So, um, so South to North, essentially the Kilkenny Ridge trail is from, um, Mount Star King and Wombeck.

[00:23:06] And then it cuts across the weeks, mountain, mountain, um, summits. There's like three of them, I think. And then you go into Willard notch and then eventually Cabot and then out to the bulge and the horn and unknown pond and then out to Rogers ledge and then come out. So I think it's like 22 miles total across. Yeah. I know they do. Um, or at least they have done an ultra on that, I think. Right. Like maybe like a 25 mile or a 50 mile or something.

[00:23:33] Yeah. Yes, exactly. They, they do a race every year there. So, um, but this, this rescue happened, um, in that section of like, um, Mount Weeks and middle Weeks mountain. So this is on Saturday, May 3rd, uh, a solo hiker called in and said that they were wet and cold and they did not have a light source or other essential gear. So they called 911 and, uh, I guess they, they got disconnected.

[00:24:00] The conservation officer attempted to call the hiker back several times to assist him in finding the trail. I guess he was lost. Um, they were trying to get him to do a self rescue, but they were unable to make contact with him. So because of the uncertainty of the situation and the forecast of heavy rain, they were concerned about hypothermia. So they initiated a rescue. So, um, Anders Scoggin Valley search and rescue and Berlin fire department responded.

[00:24:25] So 57 year old hiker from Westwood mass was four and a half miles from the closest road. So he came in from, um, what's the name of that road to get to Cabot? What York pond? Yes. York pond road. York pond road. The hatchery. So he came in. Yeah, exactly.

[00:24:42] So he basically parked there and then cut over to bundle notch and then connected with Kilkenny Ridge and took basically the, um, the Southern route to his plan was basically to connect to Kilkenny Ridge trail and then hike the weeks, which is like, I think it's like three summits.

[00:25:04] And then basically doing an out and back. So I think it'd be like a 10 mile hike, 11 mile hike or something like that. So, um, not an area that gets traveled at all. Yeah. That's why maybe it does, but like, I had to read it. It seems like a very interesting decision to head out there this time of year. Like maybe he needed them for a lit. Cause I think there's like a hundred highest or something with what the weeks, right? Maybe. Yeah. I would think that the weeks would be on there. So, um, and there's three peaks, there's Mount Weeks, Middle Weeks, and then the South Peak. Okay.

[00:25:32] So, um, but essentially what ended up happening is he ran into, you know, some rain and then that section there, I have to imagine. So when, when you hike that in the summertime, there's a ton of blowdowns. So the weeks got hit like with that, like bomb cyclone, whatever that bomb cyclone storm was years ago. Okay.

[00:25:57] Got absolutely nailed with that. So there's a ton of blowdowns. Even when I hiked it like three years ago, like they still hadn't cleared a lot of the blowdowns. So you're basically jumping over big, big trees, rerouting on the trail. And it's just not an easy trail to stay on. And when it's, when it's not, when, when it's not wintertime, there's a ton of high ferns that grow in. So it covers the trail. So it's very easy to get off trail.

[00:26:24] I don't know how the heck you'd navigate it in the winter without a GPS. So he was, so this guy found himself basically wet, cold, mildly hypothermic and, uh, in, in, in trouble.

[00:26:37] So he, you know, called for the rescue. The officers in the rescue team came in through the, the old unmaintained York pond trail in East Lancaster. And then some other folks just, um, came in through the, the original York pond road trailhead in Berlin.

[00:26:59] And eventually they got to him around. So the call came in at like three 45. They got to him at like nine 15 and he was at the coordinates where he called nine one one. They were able to swap them out with dry clothes, give them warm liquids, get some light sources. And then they hiked about two and a half miles down to an ATV. And they were able to drive them out the remaining two miles. And he ended up getting doubled at like one 45 in the morning after starting his hike at 8 AM.

[00:27:27] That's a long day. So I had one question that came to mind off this, that, that unmaintained section, is that the trail that like got closed or part of the York pond trail because of private landowners? I don't think so. I think that's the old Mount, that's, that's, that's father trail or something. Mount Cabot trail. Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. So this must be a different, like, um, maybe like a logging road or something.

[00:27:48] Okay. So, uh, but yeah, the guy started at eight in the morning. He was going to do an out and back to get those three weeks summits and then return the same. I mean, there's no views in any of those peaks that I recall that, uh, that is worth going to. So he must've been doing like the hundred highest or something, but he basically ran into deep snow, kept losing the trail and was unable to, um, to even relocate the trail with a mapping program on his phone.

[00:28:18] He ended up using it so much that he drained the battery to the point that he was only able to just make the 911 call before his battery totally died. Guy's got 25 years of hiking experience. He just didn't know that the snow conditions were, were going to be that bad in the upper level. So again, like he, we dealt with this, we're going to talk about this later in the show, but you know, the snow conditions are basically, there's no snow below 3000 feet and there's no snow above tree line.

[00:28:46] But in between that section, it's, there's a lot of snow, it's going to be deep snow and there's a lot of stuff you got to deal with. So this is what that guy had to deal with here. So, yeah. And then, um, I was looking, so the next one was a little bit of a twofer. I didn't realize on the articles here, but the, because it mentions the Kilkenny Ridge rescue, but, um, this one also touched upon on Thursday, this past Thursday, which would have been.

[00:29:11] Like May 8th, um, around 1 30 AM conservation officers rescued a 39 year old Rhode Island man from the Skookumchuck trail, um, on Garfield Ridge and Franconia. So I think this is one you guys have touched upon in the past a bunch, but this is the classic, um, wrong turn off the summit of Lafayette. So it sounds like he was on Franconia Ridge, um, and basically just missed the turnoff. Um, and it sounds like he ended up back at least he had it.

[00:29:40] He basically was able to make a shelter and he, uh, sheltered in his tent until rescuers arrived just after 4 AM to reach him. So still pretty long day. Yeah. Yeah. And they, they're saying that he'll likely be billed for, um, the nine hour rescue. And yeah, this is a classic scenario. We talk about this all the time. People come across Franconia Ridge and they get, they get mixed up when they get to the summit of Lafayette and they don't go down towards Greenleaf.

[00:30:08] And they keep going down to, um, like North Lafayette and they end up heading towards Garfield or, and it becomes, comes a mess because they've, then they've committed themselves. They don't want to turn back around because it's such an effort to climb back up, but you, there's no options for you to get close to where you need to go back. Yeah. I wonder if he just was tired and cold and he kind of, cause I mean, he had, at least he was warm enough. And he had enough dexterity to set up a tent, but maybe he just figured at 1 30 AM he called the quits. Kind of interesting. It's like, it's almost to me, it almost sounds like he sort of what he was on his way down.

[00:30:38] Basically, if he made it down to Skookumchuck from that point, but. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know, um, what, what he was thinking, but he probably was, um, not super comfortable even though he was in a tent. Yeah. Fair. So anyway, so yeah, so that's the wrong turn situation. We talk about that all the time about the, how many times that, that happens.

[00:30:59] So, um, and then, yeah, I think in the date on that one, it wouldn't have been, you said May 8th, but I, I think it was closer to May 1st actually. Okay. Yes. Because we're in May 7th. Right. You're correct, Mike. Thank you. Got it. Perfect. And then, um, the next one is a, this is a water crossing situation. So this is on Lincoln Brook trail and, uh, I don't really spend much time out in this.

[00:31:27] I always bypass this with the, the black pond cutoff. So I don't know if I go this way, but this is a solo 19 year old male hiker had departed with an intent to do a two day hike to Owl's Head. Heavy rain throughout Saturday had caused water crossings to swell, making them unsafe to cross. And, um, let me see here. Did this guy, oh no.

[00:31:56] So the conservation was made aware of an overdue hiker. So he didn't even call. They were just out looking for him. So conservation officers were sent to check the likely crossings of Franconia and Lincoln Brook. By Sunday morning, no sign of the hiker was found and a call was made to Pemi Valley search and rescue. Uh, around 1045, a trail runner spotted the missing hiker. From the Lincoln Brook trail and Franconia Brook crossing about 4.8 miles away.

[00:32:25] The missing hiker was able to signal that he was okay, but he couldn't safely cross the water. The trail runner was able to relay, relay the information to Pemi Sarr who were nearby. And a call was placed to Mountain Rescue and the White Mountain Swiftwater team to have them respond in case rescuers could not find a way to safely cross. And by 1230, a group of Pemi Sarr members were able to locate a safe area to forward the brook.

[00:32:51] They made their way to the area of the hiker and eventually back to the safety of Lincoln Brook. So just before 2 p.m. Um, so, um, hiker was from New Ipswich, New Hampshire and said he had little difficulty crossing on Friday evening, but with the rain and snow melt through Saturday, he became trapped between the two brooks. And he was unaware of the black pond bushwhack, which is a much safer route to Owl's Head that avoids the water crossing.

[00:33:19] So he just sheltered in his tent from Saturday afternoon. Then he saw the trail runner and he was like, Hey dude, I need help. And luckily, um, he knew not to attempt the water crossing alone and was grateful that, uh, that he got the rescue there. So hats off to Pemi Valley, Pemi Valley Search and Rescue and the conservation officers and hats off to the hiker for not, um, taking an unnecessary risk. Yeah, that can be dangerous. This, this one, um, hit home with me a little bit.

[00:33:46] I think I've shared the story with you two before Mike, but when Ash and I first attempted Owl's Head, um, back in like August of 2019, it was a day. It wasn't supposed to rain as much as it was, but, uh, to summarize, like we got out to Owl's Head. We turned around at the slide because it was pouring rain. Um, and I was concerned a little bit about the river crossings. We made it okay on the way out there, but by the way back, by the time we made our way back, um, some of those river crossings and we actually took the old way. It seems like everybody uses black pond bushwhack now.

[00:34:13] Um, this is probably a little bit before the social social media pages were as active and we saw like people using different routes rather than what the guide had. But we went by the guide, um, and one of those river crossings that was maybe shin deep on the way out was legitimately like over, I'd say waist deep, almost up to our belly buttons. So like it was, it was legit. And that was in like probably three ish hours. So, I mean, yeah, that can, that can happen out there. I mean, I think if we had, we hadn't turned back it, we very could have very well could have ended up out there.

[00:34:43] Um, we had a 10 and some stuff with us too. Um, but yeah, it was, it wouldn't have been a great scenario. And that's kind of when I learned to respect water a bit. Um, it's kind of crazy how fast those, those rivers can swell. Yeah. Yeah. Especially this time of the year, because you've got the added issue of the snow melt. Yeah. That keeps them constantly high. And then with a little bit of rain, you know, I don't know what the, what the measurement is, but you get an inch of rain and I'm sure that that can, that can swell a river crossing pretty quickly.

[00:35:11] So, I mean, we were thinking about that when we crossed the, um, the, the, the, the, the river crossing on, um, link Liberty Springs this weekend. Yeah. So, all right. So those are the big three rescues that happened in New Hampshire. So the rescue season has begun. I think that the rescue teams are probably going to be pretty busy this summer. And usually we see, you know, May is the first big month where you start getting like into more than 10 to 12 news media reports.

[00:35:39] And, you know, this is developing very similar to what you'll see in previous years. So I think the rescue teams are going to start getting busy. So Nick, we got a couple more here. We've got a, uh, an update on a missing hiker in Vermont. I didn't even know about this story, but, uh, unfortunately this is a deceased hiker. So Sue Me Co. had been missing since leaving for a hike near Mount Pisgah in January.

[00:36:09] So, uh, this is in Vermont. So she's from Crassberry, Vermont, and she was reported missing in early January. She had reportedly gone hiking in the area near Mount Pisgah Trailhead and Westmore. And there'd been a couple of searches for her. Um, North County search dogs had gone out, I think two other times. Yeah. That's what it sounds like. And this time around, yeah, this time around they were able to, I guess they were dealing with like difficult terrain and high snowpack.

[00:36:36] But, um, the third time around they were able to, I guess, locate her, uh, remains, which is a sad story. I don't know the details of what happened there, but, um, with the snow melt and, uh, the, the navigation being a little bit easier for the, uh, the, the dogs that, uh, they were able to, to find it. So the, the dog that found his name was Radar. He's a black German shepherd and he worked pretty hard to deliver the results that they had all been hoping for.

[00:37:06] So, uh, hats off to Radar and condolences to the family. It's a terrible way to go, but glad that they got closure. Yeah, absolutely. Like you said, at least they got some closure and they did find it. This one also reminded me, um, and I feel like you, it was probably covered a while back, but there was a, there was a hiker that went missing in the Adirondacks. Um, I believe later, maybe it was late fall, early winter this year. And they also, I don't, I'm assuming they'll probably be searching for him too. Cause they never actually found him out there.

[00:37:32] And I know the snowpack and terrain were the issues, but it kind of made me think of that. Also a very, very unfortunate circumstance. Yeah. That's the young Canadian hiker, right? Yeah. That went missing. Yeah. They found him yet. Yeah. Do you know where he was high? You know, the Adirondacks much better than I do. You, you know, um, the, the mountain that he was on. I believe he was headed for, um, now Allen, which is kind of a herd path, Bush wacky one.

[00:37:59] Um, it's also Bush wacky being the tech, the operative term, I guess, um, not to make light of it, but that is a very long hike. I believe it's like almost 20 miles or something. It's kind of like the owl said of the Adirondacks. Um, and I think he was experienced everything well-prepared, but, um, I know just with the terrain and everything, and maybe the fact that there's not necessarily one sort of trail corridor leading to the summit of Allen mountain that, um, they really had a heck of a time trying to find them up there and still were unsuccessful.

[00:38:26] So hopefully they can, his family can get some closure as well as we kind of move into the spring and things start to thaw out a little bit. Yes. And he was my recollection. Cause I saw, I, I saw his social media. I think he had a Tik TOK channel and he had done some pretty extremely long hikes and difficult hikes. So he was not, um, unfamiliar, but again, I, I don't know what the circumstances were in this particular hike, but sometimes, you know, when you're doing solo things and you're going deep into the, I, I, I, my understanding with the Adirondacks is like the mileage is

[00:38:57] significant. Like you said, if it's similar to Owl's head, then there's less room for, for mistakes. If you're solo and you're, you're in those conditions. Yeah. A hundred percent. And, um, yeah, this was actually, his name was Leo DeFore and this actually happened back on November 29th. So shortly before calendar winter, but, um, by then the snowpack was certainly already ramping up, I think in New Hampshire and the Adirondacks. Yeah. We'll keep an eye on that story and hopefully the, for the family's sake, they, they can locate him.

[00:39:26] For sure. All right. We're going to continue on the depressing theme here. This was a story. I don't think we've covered this one. This is a Massachusetts fatality that happened in purgatory chasm and a chasm. Um, I don't, I've never been here, Nick. Have you been there? So I have, I I've been here as a kid, um, quite a few times. My dad actually used to take me. Um, it's off of like when they say like Uxbridge, like that kind of area. Actually looking at this right now. Um, but, uh, Sutton mass Sutton mass.

[00:39:56] So yeah, kind of off that one 46 quarter. Um, and we used to go in back then too. It wasn't like, I think you actually pay to get in and out and stuff. And back then it was literally like, you just kind of, what I recall, it was a dirt parking lot and we just kind of walked in the woods and went to it. But, but yeah, it's a chasm with, um, it's similar to like, and I don't know how much more it's, it might be built up now, but it's similar to like a polar caves vibe where they have like lemon squeezers and things like that. And there's like some cliffs. Um, and I would imagine you probably could do some bouldering and rock climbing in there.

[00:40:23] Um, I, I gotta get back there sometime and see what it's like, but definitely went there as a kid. Um, multiple times. Yeah. And I don't know exactly. So the reason we bring this up is that there's a, a 49 year old mom from a tops field mass, which is kind of near my neck of the woods. Matter of fact, I think one of my friends was familiar with her through just through family because he, um, lives in that area, but she had fallen. They said approximately 50 to 75. She was off hiking with three of her kids. She's a mom of four.

[00:40:53] It's horrible. And she, she sustained an injury during the fall and was pronounced deceased a short time later. And I don't know exactly where she fell. I was looking at pictures to try to visualize it. The best I can explain what I saw for the high elevation cliffs, cliffs was, um, very similar to what I would say, like that Champney falls area where there's the ice climbing section. That's a, that's a good. When you go up there. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good comparison for what it looks like for sure. Yeah.

[00:41:21] It's like a, basically like a, um, there's cliffs on either side and then I think you can go up one side or the other and kind of look down into the, the chasm and then, um, she must have fallen or slipped or something like that. And yeah, just not going to recover from a 50 foot fall. No, no. So, um, yeah, it's just, you gotta have you, you gotta just be aware of your footing at all times. It's easy to forget and just worry about the views. And, and, and she was an apparently an experienced hiker.

[00:41:49] So this wasn't her first time out, but unfortunately she just, she slipped and fell. And it's terrible for the kids too, to be there, to witness that. Yeah. I can't imagine. And like you said, it's one of those things, maybe she just turned to look at what one of her kids was doing or something and made a misstep and that was it. Yes. Yeah. Cool. All right. So I promise Nick, the moving forward, we're going to get progressively more positive in our discussions. Yeah. We gotta, we gotta, we need some like silver lining going on here.

[00:42:19] So I, so I had pulled this one. Interestingly enough, I think it was from one of the sites, um, that we had linked to one of the previous articles in, but, um, I don't know if you'd ever talked about this trail on the podcast. I've never heard of this trail, but, um, there's a 50 mile trail in New Hampshire called the wind test to quit, but not knock trail. Forgive me for my pronunciation of that. I'm trying to do my best here with the, uh, the native American words. Um, but apparently this is a 50 mile trail running from Brattleboro, Vermont, all the way to Mount

[00:42:47] Monon, knock in New Hampshire, um, features beautiful scenery, overnight shelters. Um, and it's pretty new. It was actually opened only in 2018 and actually completed in 2018. So it's a really fresh new trail. Um, it looks beautiful and that's definitely a spot in New Hampshire. I don't think many people, again, I feel like a lot of times as list hikers, um, maybe I'm generalizing with myself, but like we, I don't think of Western New Hampshire as much in that Southwest corner as much to get to like, Monon knock's probably one of the only things I think of.

[00:43:15] Um, but it sounds like it goes across some really beautiful scenery. Um, and there are other beautiful areas of New Hampshire that are outside the white mountains and also mountainous areas that are outside the white mountain national forest. Um, so this sounds like maybe a, if you're looking to get off the beaten path, um, and get somewhere a little bit less traveled, this seems like a really good option. Yeah. And it's got three shelters, which makes sense if it's 50 miles, then yeah, it's a, it's probably a three nighter.

[00:43:40] And then I guess you can add this to the Monadnock Sunapee Greenway. So you could start here and then extend your hike for that entire long trail as well. Right. Yeah. That'd be, that'd be cool. Um, it also caught my eye too, that this passes through that Madam Sherry forest. Um, I'm, I'm sort of a new England, like spooky story legend kind of buff. And, um, I know that matter to him, Sherry's did she, she had like a, I basically, I think a mansion or something, right.

[00:44:10] With that staircase that remained for a while. I think you could go out in the woods and visit it. I'm not sure how familiar we are, Mike. Yeah, no, I'm familiar. And I, I think that the stairway, uh, last I heard it may have collapsed. Okay. Unfortunate. So don't go try to see the stairway, but I, I hadn't heard of that story before. So the Madam Sherry part of that also caught my eye. Yes. So, um, yeah, I, that's, I'll have to take a look at that. I was not familiar with that at all, but I think that, like I said, yeah, you can probably extend.

[00:44:39] Cause I think the Sunapee Greenway, um, trail goes towards the East and this one looks to start from the West. So yeah, maybe that's the, that's a, uh, little known through hike that you can do for a week or so. Cool. And as promised, we're getting more positive. There was nothing negative in that story. We are, we are. And although I don't know, I mean the old man on the mountain we're going to talk about.

[00:45:01] So the old man on the mountain fell on May 3rd, 2003, sometime between 12 AM and 2 AM. So, um, they established the old man on the mountain day, I guess to commemorate it. So, uh, yeah. So it's been how many years? So yeah, it's been 22 years. Um, yeah. See, it's funny the way I wrote this, you could tell I'm calling back to the other segment where

[00:45:31] I said that it was May 7th. Cause I, for some reason I'm thinking my brain's thinking a week ahead, but yeah. Um, it'll be old man of the mountain day on May 3rd. So that's exciting. Yes. Yeah. So did you, did you find it interesting too, that they said between 12 AM and 2 AM, like they must have accounts, I guess, of somebody that saw it, like was someone up there staring at it at midnight and then staring at 2 AM and. I don't know. It's kind of, I don't know. Yeah. I'm like, did they have a camera on it? And it's interesting. Yeah. I'm not sure.

[00:45:58] I feel like, um, there was an article at one point talking specifically about that around, um, people, uh, knowing that it fell pretty early on, but I have to look and do some, do some research on that. But I do know that like, I was reading some old Appalachia trail or trip reports in the like early 1900s where they went up there. And even back then they were saying that like the, the structure looks like it's cracked

[00:46:27] and it needs reinforcement in order for it to, to stay that way. So it's, it's, it's been sort of on the precipice of, of, uh, falling down for a long, long time. Um, related off this. I was looking on Wikipedia a little bit about the old man. Um, and this is just cool timeline wise, but I didn't realize like 93 through the not through Franconia notch was only completed in 1988. Like it's a pretty new section of highway. I did not realize that. Yeah. The interstate itself said 1988. It was on the old man of the mountain page on Wikipedia.

[00:46:58] I would have thought it was older than that. Did they just, was it like a local road and it wasn't designated? Yeah. Yeah. That's when it officially became the interstate and they actually were fighting for it to be a four lane highway originally at that point. Um, cause I believe, I believe it's another thing too, is that's the only, one of the only sections of single lane interstate, like in the country I've heard that before, but yeah, they were actually fighting, um, with the state and I guess the state park at that point

[00:47:27] to actually build a four lane highway through it. And the single lane was sort of the, um, I guess the, the, the agreement of both sides, um, to kind of minimize the, the effect and damage that the interstate would have by being created through the notch. And also sort of satisfy the need to have an interstate that actually went through and, um, kind of connected those two sides. So kind of interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:47:52] I didn't know that it was officially a, um, an interstate that late, but yeah, cause I remember driving through there as a kid and going to see the old man and all that. Yeah. It says specifically just that 12 mile section, um, which basically it, it follows route three. I think most people know that, but, uh, yeah, $56 million project. And it took 30 years to actually build the interstate through there. So it was a long time. All right. Well, we're going to talk about like building things quickly in a, uh, in another segment.

[00:48:20] So we can compare that timeline to how long it took to build the green leaf hot in a moment. But, uh, before we do that, I just wanted to give a shout out. Our friend Al sent over a note. So we had talked about that reroute to, um, the Appalachian trail that had gone through, originally had gone through Gorham. And then we were able to find, there was a commenter on, I think view from the top, or maybe it was white blaze that had given the whole rundown of the history. And it's a commenter. I've read a lot of his stuff over the years online.

[00:48:49] Uh, he goes by the name peak bagger and Al had reached out and said like, Hey, you know, just a heads up. This guy peak bagger with his actual name was Dennis Pednolt and he lived in Gorham and 64 years old, uh, passed away last year.

[00:49:04] So I just wanted to give a shout out to, uh, Dennis Pednolt because he definitely through his writings on those different forums was a, uh, a pretty, you know, useful resource to, uh, to talk about the history of the white mountains. And he was an avid solo and group hiker and backpacker. And he had a lot of friends in the hiking community and he had section hiked the AT, uh, throughout his life. So he definitely was a great resource and, uh, just wanted to give a, give a shout out.

[00:49:33] I actually got a couple of people that had reached out and said like, you know, Hey, this is the background on, on peak bagger. So if you're on view from the top or white blaze and you do a search for username peak bagger, you can see some of his stuff. He's got some good, good comments. Yeah. And I think it was pretty cool too. How really it's kind of almost a word of mouth thing. It sounds like he, he really just had the knowledge in those areas on what was going on, but it just shows you like even this, some of this stuff just gets lost to time.

[00:50:01] I think if people sort of don't pass along exactly why these things happen, like there's probably official documents, maybe if you ask someone through the Appalachian Trail Conservancy or something like that. But, um, something that kind of the keepers of the knowledge know, and it's kind of important, I think, to document that stuff so that us in the future can kind of have those as takeaways. Yeah. Yeah. Hopefully that, uh, whoever's in charge of these forums, they, these message boards tend to be like, yeah, they, they keep renewing your, um, your DNS.

[00:50:31] Um, options for your, your, your, uh, website and all that stuff. Cause I feel like these forums, they tend to die off over time and it'd be, it'd be sad to see them disappear. Yeah. Agreed. All right. So that is the New Hampshire topics that we had, Nick. That was a lot. How long have we been going for? I'm going for like 30 minutes now. Yeah. But, um, we got a couple of national things here. So I got this sent to, uh, did you get this Mount Fuji story sent to you by multiple people? I did.

[00:51:00] I did. And I, and I saw it like on the news as well myself. Yeah. I got it, uh, from a ton of people here. So, uh, this is just, we'll do a quickly just cause we're running out of time here, but a climber was airlifted with altitude sickness from near the summit of Japan's Mount Fuji last week. And, um, he had to be rescued a second time just four days later.

[00:51:22] So 27 year old Chinese student living in Japan made an emergency call on April 22nd and was airlifted after developing symptoms of altitude sickness. And I don't know how high up he was. It doesn't say in the article here, but on, um, Saturday he returned to the mountains, uh, Fuji Numaya trail, nearly 10,000 feet above sea level to look for his cell phone and other belongings.

[00:51:51] So he must've had to bail on his backpack. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, when he, when he went up there, another climber found him there unable to move after he apparently got sick for a second time. So when you're going to get altitude sickness, it's very likely you're going to get it a second time. So he was taken to the hospital and, uh, it was not known whether he was able to find his phone in the end. I like how they had to mention that at the end. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:52:16] So, um, I guess this has prompted an uproar on social media and generated calls for him to be charged at least for the second rescue. But I don't know what, um, what they're going to do here. Police just urge all climbers to use caution. And I guess this mountain is it's, it's 12,388 feet at the summit and is designated as a UNESCO world cultural heritage site. I don't really know. Have you ever dealt with altitude sickness, Nick?

[00:52:46] How high have you been? I feel like I asked you this. Like a little under 11,000 with San Jacinto, but also it was like, if he was up there for multiple days, like camping, that was different. Cause we took a tram to like 8,000 ish and then hiked up to around 11,000. So, um, a little bit different, but. You didn't feel any issues? Um, not directly. I mean, we definitely noticed a little shortness of breath, but I think that the snowy mushiness that we hit on San Jacinto being in the spring was way more of a dream.

[00:53:13] Then, um, we noticed the altitude itself, but it was noticeable. Yeah. I think I'm, I'm going to be on Monalea, I think, or Monakea. One of those ones in Hawaii, that's like over 13,000 feet. So I'll be interested to see how I, how I, how I do. Yeah. I think my gut was like, um, and again, I know you're running the stuff too, so I suspect it'll probably be similar, but it was like, I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong.

[00:53:39] But I definitely noticed that, uh, not wrong, but I definitely noticed that my body was exerting itself a little bit more than it was than it was normally. I'm kind of like, huh, this is interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I think my understanding is, is that they, if you drive up, they make you wait at like this visitor center for a half hour before you can go up to the main summit. But I'm going to try to figure out, like get dropped off and then hike up from like, maybe, I don't know what it is, like 9,000 feet up to 13,000 or something like that. So we'll, we'll see how it goes.

[00:54:08] That'll be a good climb. Yeah. Yeah, it will be. But it doesn't look super late. It's all, there's no, you're not in trees and it just seems like you're just on these like dirt lava fields. So it doesn't seem very pretty, but we'll see anyway. But, um, speaking of not pretty, we, we often have these like tour ons of Yellowstone stories, but this is actually a really sad, I promise we were going to get more positive, but Stomp pulled this. Yeah.

[00:54:36] And, uh, there was this horrific crash that killed seven people outside of Yellowstone, uh, which was, I guess it was a Dodge Ram pickup and a Mercedes passenger van that collided killing seven people. So six in the tour van and the lone occupant of the pickup truck. So a pickup truck and a Mercedes passenger, that's like the immovable object meeting the unstoppable force. Yeah. It's, it's not good.

[00:55:04] And then as this article describes, it sounds like it was a horrific crash. Yeah. Yeah. 14 people in the van, six of them died. I don't know if this was like a tour van or if this was like one of those van, you know, they have those kids that sell magazines and they put them all in the van and they drive around. Yeah. Probably not a Mercedes van. I don't think they would do that. So, um, yeah, they just said that it was a, um, it was still under investigation and they're trying to work through the details.

[00:55:34] Details of what happens. But, um, there was a, there was a fire and one of the witnesses is basically like, I'm choosing to believe that they perished in the crash and not in the flames, but it's difficult to tell. Yikes. So horrific. Yeah. That's not great. And, uh, and I, I just pulled this one before he hopped on and it's funny because these article titles, it's almost, it seems like they're a joke, but we have a tourist gored by bison in Yellowstone national park. After getting too close.

[00:56:04] And the subtext underneath it is this incident marks the first reported bison goring of 2025. Um, so apparently it's, it's just very much a thing. So, um, a bison attacked a tourist earlier this week in Yellowstone national park. After the man got too close, the incident occurred on May 4th in Lake village area of the park near popular attractions, such as Yellowstone Lake and the old faithful geyser.

[00:56:26] Um, the 47, 47 year old man was from Cape curl, Corral or coral Florida and was gored by the bison after he approached it too closely. According to, uh, the news release from Yellowstone national park. And, uh, they are reminding you that bison have short curved horns with a sharp point and goring refers to a bison's horns puncturing a person's skin muscle or organs. The man sustained minor injuries and was treated by emergency medical personnel in the park and the incident is still under investigation.

[00:56:52] So as cool as those bison are, they're massive animals and they're incredibly strong and they have very sharp horns. So keep your distance. It's not worth getting gored by one and ending up on a news article. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're interested to see some examples of the behavior of tourists around these big bison, you can go on to Torons of Yellowstone, which is on Instagram.

[00:57:18] And you can see, like, I'm looking at a video right now from one day ago with this guy that's like within two feet of a bison and he's crouched down. There's no way that he's going to escape if this bison decides to charge him. Yeah. It's, I don't know. I don't know. I feel like even for me, like the times I've seen moose or whatever in New Hampshire, like I, I wouldn't want to be within two or three feet of these massive animals. Like they're beautiful. Don't get me wrong. And it's incredible to be that close to him.

[00:57:43] But like there, you got to remember they're, they're huge and they can do whatever they, you're basically a rag doll to them for the size that a bison is or a moose is or something like that. So if they decide that they're angry at you and they charge you, like you really can't do much. Yeah. Yeah. Like I'm looking at one of these videos right now. This lady is literally like right on top of a bison that's sitting down and she's taking selfies and fiddling with her hair. So it's just crazy. Wild.

[00:58:12] Just stay away from the animals. Leave no trace and leave the animals alone. Are you ready for Slashers Gear Review? So Nick, you had pulled this eight, you had the REI guide for, we're going to do gear review now.

[00:58:39] Now, REI's eight best hiking boots of 2025. Is this for, this is not for winter. This is just for hiking in the summer seasons. Correct. Correct. So these are generally just mid, mid level. I don't know if you say mid cut, mid level ones that kind of in terms of how far they come over your foot, but mid hiking boots. So I thought, I thought this was pretty interesting with the variety of brands they had. Sorry, were you going to say something, Mike? No, no. I was just, I'm, I'm, I'm holding on from, I'm past my bedtime, Nick.

[00:59:09] So I'm holding on for dear life here. Gotcha. Gotcha. Um, but I mean, uh, to summarize a little bit with the ultra alone, nine peaks, um, waterproof mid hiking boots, I guess came in first. I use ultra lone, uh, lone peak nine trail runners. So I thought that was interesting. Maybe I'll have to try their boots, but I know it seems like more and more people I know are all on trail runners and not so much the mid boots anymore.

[00:59:31] Um, I use them in between sometimes I have an old pair of Keens, um, that are like sort of sneaker cut, but I, I don't even really use those anymore. And kind of broke the, broke the seal this weekend when we're out using trail runners and mixed conditions and I was fine. So I don't know if I'd go back. Yeah. I don't know if I would either, but there are some people that, you know, they want more support on their ankles and they don't feel comfortable with the, with the trailer. I just couldn't go back.

[00:59:57] I just want that lightness in my feet, but these are all, you know, similar to the brands that we use in the winter hiking. You know, there's a pair of oboes and there's, um, trying to see here, ultra lone peak. Like you said, there's a Hoka, there's a Merrill, there's a Salmon. I feel like Merrill's been around forever. Ash actually has, um, those oboes once and she's liked those for a few years. Um, I figured like, well, we'll throw this up in the show notes, but I also, and, um, enjoy this article as, as with a lot of REI articles.

[01:00:27] Um, it does a great job of explaining like zero drop in some of these different terms that you might see in hiking boots. Um, if you are curious and looking to try something different, I thought it did a good, good job in layman's terms of explaining certain features. Yeah. Yeah. And for like three season hiking, you basically, you've got like the hiking boots. Like you, you just pulled this article, which is like mid, mid height, um, boots.

[01:00:52] Then you've got hiking shoes, which when I first started hiking, that was sort of like the go to everybody wore the, you know, the Merrill's or the, um, the, yeah, it was mostly Merrill's. And I think there was a few other brands and they were there, they're a little heavier and they're a little stiffer. They're a lot stiffer, I think, and heavier than the trail runners. But at some point the trail runners took over and, um, the trail runners are great.

[01:01:19] I think they give you a ton of like, they're light, they're flexible, but you know, the one drawback for them is that you are susceptible to rolling your ankles if you're not paying attention. And every once in a while you'll, you'll get one of those scares on trail. So hiking shoes or hiking boots are a good option. If you prefer to, uh, to have a little bit more stability and a little bit more production around the ankles. Yeah. And, um, just protections for your feet in general.

[01:01:45] Like I, I was noting even when we were coming down Liberty that, um, obviously with trail runners and how thick those souls are, especially with like zero drop shoes, you can feel those spikes underneath your feet. Like it's, it's not super comfortable. I would say walking on bare ground with spikes with trail runners on, but it's again, it's whatever, um, there's advantages and disadvantages. Right. Right. And then, um, the next thing we want to talk about in relation to gear is, um, we did a hike.

[01:02:11] We'll talk about this hike in a, in a little while, but we did Liberty Springs to Mount Liberty. And there was three of us. There was young Nick. It was our friend Steve from the Cape. And then there was me, Steve and Mike brought umbrellas because it was raining out and Nick did not. And Nick was extremely jealous by the end of the hike around, um, not around us having umbrellas and him not having them. So he pulled some details about, uh, hiking umbrellas for, for us to look at.

[01:02:40] So, um, if you're going in the rain, I don't recommend hiking in the rain. I recommend staying home first off, especially when it's going to be like forties for summer temperatures. Um, we were, we were kind of talking, we had a friend that did the twins. Well, a friend that's been on the podcast, Paul, that was doing the twins last weekend. And, um, we were all kind of like, Oh, why would you hike when it's that cold and rainy and snowing and Q was hiking up to Liberty and like low 40 degree temperatures on and off rain in the snow.

[01:03:07] Um, but yeah, maybe just stay, stay at home is also a good option. But if you don't want to stay at home. Yeah. And you think you're going to have rain, then I recommend an umbrella. I think it works perfect. And I think that it's a, it's a really good situation because I think where umbrellas don't work well is if you're going to be above tree line and you're going to be dealing with windy conditions, then an umbrella is not realistic to be honest with you.

[01:03:33] But a lot of hikes in the white mountains, you're in the trees up until you get to the summit. So you can mostly use an umbrella. The trails are wide enough where you don't run into too many problems. The only time you run into a problem is like, if you got to go through a blow down and then you just pack your umbrella up and then open it back up. But, um, I use just a cheap like umbrella from Kohl's that my wife keeps in her car and it works fine. It's fragile though.

[01:03:58] It's not going to be as sturdy, but we did pull four brands of hiking umbrellas if you want to consider them. And these, these umbrellas are generally between 40 and $50 and they weigh between 5.4 ounces up to about 6.8 ounces. So not super heavy and they come with like a, an attachment kit, which is essentially like just kind of rubber stretchy bands that can strap to one of your shoulder things.

[01:04:28] And they usually anchor at two points and then the umbrella will stay. It doesn't, it's not perfect though. I didn't really look at Steve and how he had his weight, but it didn't look perfect. Yeah. I was going to say, it seemed like you guys had mixed kind of, uh, feelings about kind of using that and you were just ended up kind of holding them. Um, I believe Steve had this Gossamer gear one also, by the way. Um, he does. Yeah. He has a Gossamer gear. I had a Kohl's like $3 special.

[01:04:55] And then, um, I pulled like four different brands. There's a Gossamer gear. There's six moons, which is another ultra light gear company that we don't really talk about them. Nick, are you familiar with them? I've never heard of them until you linked them in this article. This is my first time hearing of them. Yeah. They have tents. They have backpacks. They have a, they, they market their backpacks as waterproof, but not a water.

[01:05:20] I guess water can get into them somehow, but they're, so you have to use a liner, but, um, they have backpacks. They have tents, they have these ultra light umbrellas, uh, and then, um, so six moons. And then Montbell is the lightest. It's 5.4 ounces. And, uh, then Z-Packs also has an umbrella, which I'm assuming is Dyneema fabric and it's 6.8 ounces.

[01:05:46] So, um, yeah, they all look probably pretty similar and they're, they will probably hold up a lot better than mine did in windy conditions. Cause they tend to be, I feel like they're more rigid than mine is. Mine was flatter and these ones are more rounded and rigid. Yeah. And I mean, I think too, you want to be clear with people like typically the diameter of these umbrellas, like it's not as big as like your typical walking down the street umbrella. They're made to be in the woods and hiking.

[01:06:12] And I think you guys maybe had one issue with a blow down where I saw you kind of had to maneuver around it, but you guys were plenty good with plenty of room on Liberty Springs trail most of the time. Um, right. And yeah, I w I was jealous on you guys. And I think the, the big reason to me was now Liberty Springs, fairly steep trail. We were going up, um, at a fairly decent clip. And even with how it wasn't, I wouldn't say it was super warm. It wasn't super cold either, but it's nice with that umbrella. I was noticing like, you guys are just, you're kind of in the open.

[01:06:40] You can release like the, the steam and perspiration from your body a little bit better. Um, where I was kind of having to switch my rain jacket on and off and immediately I was wet and steamy and I had to change a shirt. So it wasn't a big deal, but I was jealous of the fact that you guys definitely stayed drier from at least the waist up than I did on pretty much the entire hike. And you could just hold that umbrella, pop it up when you need to, um, put it back down when you don't need it. It's easier than stowing a jacket in your backpack. Like I was doing under a rain cover and having to put it on, um, just seemed like a really good alternative.

[01:07:09] Um, if you're going to go on a day when there's going to be out on and off showers to use, as opposed to just relying on a rain jacket and rain cover and stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And I've done it twice so far. And yeah, exactly what you said. It's like, you're not dealing with wetting out and sweating inside of your, uh, your raincoat. You've got the raincoat available if you need to use it in a pinch. Sure. If you're above tree line, but you're not soaking yourself, um, ahead of time.

[01:07:31] The one drawback I would say is that you've got your umbrella, then you've got your rain cover over your backpack and the, the umbrella tends to drip off the back. And I think that some of that water hits like the bottom part of the, the rain cover. And then eventually it just gets wetted out so that the water's dripping on the back of your legs. So my pants were soaked at the bottom, but eh, whatever, you know, it's better than my upper body being wet. Agreed. Agreed. Where that core warms is.

[01:08:01] Yes. So yeah, but I definitely recommend an umbrella and you know, they're not super heavy. So five, six, seven ounces and you throw it in your backpack and you get it there. We all know that hiking a mountain can be hard at times. So here's a corny dad joke to help you get over it. But I'm bum. Now it's a part of the show where I have to do a dad joke. I don't have my coffee mug from my friend, Julie, but I've got my book here.

[01:08:31] Okay. Let's see what's on tap for tonight. I didn't pick one out ahead of time. So I'm going to randomly select a dad joke. Why did the teddy bear skip her lunch? She was stuffed. Oh, you got that one. Hey. That's nice. That's nice. Where do hamburgers go to dance? I don't know.

[01:09:01] The meatball. Get it? The meatball. Yeah. So. Okay. It's one for two. Maybe I'll do one more. Okay. Why do melons have weddings? I don't know. Because they can't elope. Get it? That's awful. Oh, awful. Awful. So. All right.

[01:09:26] So we did your, we already did your pop culture talk here with Nick's music moment. Yeah. We did some there. All right, Nick. Are you ready to hike for 48 peaks this summer? I am. I'm stoked. I'm already breaking out the purple shirt a little bit here and there just because those shirts from last year for 48 peaks were awesome, but I'm ready. Were you were? Yeah. As a matter of fact, I think I've got to put my, I got to get my donations in. So I get my shirt. I think the donations have to be in by May 15th to qualify for the shirt. So we will be doing that and making sure that we get that.

[01:09:55] So listeners, you use your passion for hiking to end Alzheimer's. Join 400 plus hikers as they climb New Hampshire's 4,000 footers or create their own challenge to support the mission of the Alzheimer's Association. The annual hiker celebration will take place Saturday, June 21st at Tuckerman Brewing with raffles, food, and an amazing community. Hike that weekend or any day you want this summer.

[01:10:20] No fundraising minimums required, but those who raise $100 will receive the 2025 performance grade purple t-shirt. Let's turn the White Mountains purple to end Alzheimer's. Visit alz.org slash 48 peaks to learn more. And if you are interested, if you want to hike with Mike and knobby hikes and maybe even stomp, and I don't know if Nick's going to join us or not, if he's got his own thing going on, you can join the Slasher 48 peaks Alzheimer's team by checking out the show notes.

[01:10:50] And we'll include a link in the show notes and you can sign up and join us. And right now we have, let me take a look and see how many people we've got. We've got five people. Andy from the COG is going to be joining us too. And then I've got two more people that are going to sign up. So we've got seven right now. Oh boy. Again, quite the squad getting quite the squad. Yeah. I'll be hiking with you either way. And probably as time goes on, it'll probably be more likely that I just joined your team, but I'm not ready to fully commit yet, Mike.

[01:11:20] I'm not ready. I don't know. All right, Nick. All right, Nick. Well, I appreciate that. I think that play hard to get. That's the way I always tell people to do it. All right. You know what's not hard to get, Nick, is free stickers. So if you want free slasher stickers, you can go check out Ski Fanatics or you can go to Spinner's Pizza Parlor in Andover, Mass.

[01:11:45] Spinner's Pizza Parlor in Andover if you want to get free stickers. And then if you want to get slasher swag, you can go to our online bonfire shop and choose between our super popular hoodies, classic or V-neck tees, and more. The color selection is great and they're priced to move. Help spread the word about slasher and represent today. Awesome.

[01:12:09] And last but not least, if you want to donate to support the show, you can check out Slasher's Buy Me A Coffee site. Donations help us pay for web hosting, distribution, live events, and all of the equipment that Stomp and Nick like to buy. Yeah, we need to sound good. All that equipment that you just got now that you're setting up a nice home studio, which will be fun. I know. Nick hooked me up with his scraps. I think you have a gear problem, Nick.

[01:12:38] You just handed over hundreds of dollars worth of microphones and crap. Perhaps. Thank you. Thank you. But we want to thank Ulrich Mueller von Blumenkron. That's quite the name. Yes, he bought five coffees. Yes. He's our listener. He likely sits in, I think, Europe or Switzerland or something. But yeah, Ulrich Mueller von Blumenkron. Five coffees. So we appreciate it.

[01:13:07] And thanks for the support, Ulrich. Thank you, Ulrich. Hey, hold my beer. It's time to find out what Mike and Stomp are drinking on this week's Beer Talk. All right. This is the part of the show where we talk about beer. We're not drinking any beer. You're drinking a seltzer. I had a beer tonight.

[01:13:37] I had a Riverwalk IPA at the Port Tavern in Newburyport for my daughter's 23rd birthday dinner. And they had the live Irish music there. They had fiddlers and guitar players. And they were all sitting around jamming. And it felt like I was in Ireland, Nick. Excellent. Very cool. I knew we should have gone left back there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:14:10] Yeah. Are you sure you're not about to have a bowel emergency? Totally. We got this. But I just blew out my hip. Fell down that gully with my 40-year-old micro spikes. Suck it up, Stomp. It's 4 p.m. We're at 3,500 feet. We got nine miles back to the parking lot. Your leg may be broken. We got no cell connection. And we can't feel our fingers. But we're finishing all of my list tonight. By the way, I need some water. I'm empty. I would if I could see what I'm doing. But my headlamp batteries are dead.

[01:14:40] You gotta be kidding me. What a chump. This is the last time I hike with you. Ha. Whatever, Mr. Do you know me? I have a podcast. Whatever. Let's find out what Mike and Stomp have been hiking. And that was the part of the show where we talk about recent hikes. So we did, Nick and Mike did a hike to Liberty. And we originally planned to go over to Flume.

[01:15:07] But with the rain conditions and Nick not having an umbrella, we said forget that. But why don't you give a recap of the Liberty Springs hike? Sure. So we were all looking to get out, I think. And this weekend was really shifty with the weather. As it seems every weekend, it seems like, especially in the whites lately, it's just been rainy. And the weather hasn't been great. And there's been very narrow weather windows. But we were all watching all week. I was busy Saturday. I'm not sure exactly what was going on with you guys. If you were busy or Saturday or Sunday just looked better.

[01:15:35] But in any event, we started chatting with our good friend Steve. And we sort of convinced ourselves that there was going to be a weather window on Sunday. I think into Saturday night, maybe that weather window seemed to dissipate a little bit and wasn't as much of an option. And I think we were kicking around a couple ideas. I know Steve's officially admitted that he's gridding. I'm working on my seasonal and also needed Liberty and flume. So you suggested that. And we both hopped right on board. Figured it would be a nice, easy, relatively easy hike, I guess. And it's kind of easy to get to off 93.

[01:16:06] But yeah, we made our way up. What do we mean? Probably like eight o'clock, something like that. It was raining on and off the whole way up. Didn't look great. It wasn't raining particularly hard when we started up Liberty Springs. And we parked at the basin and basically made our way to Liberty Springs Trail from that side. And I don't know if it's like probably like heading up to Liberty. It's like 3000-ish feet and like three-ish miles, 3.25 miles. I think we had like six and a half or seven miles, something like that. So it's steep.

[01:16:36] It's nothing. I don't think it ever gets, we kind of agreed. It doesn't ever get crazy scrambly or crazy steep. It's just a sustained steep pretty much the entire time. Right. Made our way up. The rain was pretty much intermittent the entire time. We were concerned about that one river crossing that Mike mentioned earlier. I forget what the name of that Brooker stream is. We were able to make it across pretty easily. I think Mike kind of led the way with your collapsed umbrella. Steve and I both had trekking poles. We were a little bit more skittish of the crossing.

[01:17:06] And once we got to, I think it was around 3,300 feet, started to hit some ice and monorail. Didn't need our spikes on the way up until we hit the Franconia Ridge Trail Junction. But I know we all kind of, I think Steve mentioned something. And I think we all looked at each other around Liberty Springs tent site. And we're like, as the rain started to intensify again, we're kind of like, yeah, we're good with just going up to Liberty and not hitting flume today. And I think you had some witty thing you said about like,

[01:17:32] it's not worth having summit fever if you're going to get hypothermia or something like that. Because it was like, it is just one of those days where it's like, I don't know, it was like 60s, 50s down low, like 40s, not very windy up high, but still like 40s and just rainy. Like it wasn't great. And you got snow on the ground. Had our spikes on a bit from the Franconia Ridge Trail Junction up to Liberty. We took them, we took them off right around the summit cone. Kind of once we got above treeline, everything was burned off as far as snow and ice. Made it really quick up there. Steve did his picture thing because

[01:18:02] he is Steve of Steve each shit fame. It is Italian sub. And we made our way back down rather slowly with spikes back on. There was some interesting monorail going back down Liberty Springs until we hit the Franconia Ridge Trail Junction. Pretty uneventful, I think from there on out too. Kind of made pretty good time down. Yeah, it was. I like that area for sure. Yeah, it's Cascade Brook is the river crossing there.

[01:18:28] And it was one of those days where I was thinking about like, okay, well, it was, you could rock hop for sure. But I was thinking like, all right, if we get a heavy rain swell, those rock hops might, you might have to navigate and figure out like, all right, what are our options to, um, to get across? Because me and Stomp have gone across that before and had some trouble. Matter of fact, I fell in and like minus 40 degree wind chill conditions there one time, but, um, made it out.

[01:18:58] Because once you get past that, it's not a very, very long distance. But a couple of things I would just note is that we did stop at the, the tent site. The, um, the spring is running. So there's water, you know, water sources all over the place there. So you don't have to really carry much water if you want to filter or whatever. Uh, but the spring's running the, the, the, the, the caretaker's not there at this point, but you know, you can, you can tent up there if you want to. It wasn't a very appealing day, honestly, but that, uh, that section was pretty good.

[01:19:27] It didn't look like there was any concerns about traveling over to like little haystack. Like I think the monorail kicks up around 3,500 feet. And then that trail junction up there is around what 4,000, maybe 4,100. Yeah. Something like that. It's monorail, but I'm assuming as you make your way over to little haystack, there would probably be some deep sections if you wanted to go that way. Yeah. It's definitely was not broken out from what we saw. And, um, and yeah, like we were mentioning earlier with some of the search and rescue stories, but the monorail was solid.

[01:19:56] But if you're, you're stepping off that, you're probably going to go in up to your knees or deeper. Like my, I was pushing my trek and pole. I think whenever one of the pictures, even you had shared, um, but my trek and pole was up to the handle, like no problem in a few spots going off trail. So it's, it's still some deep snow pack up there before you get above treeline. Um, and I'd say like up above 3,500 feet. Yeah. So it's not, not Pemi loop season yet. Probably another, probably think like two, three weeks that snow will be mostly gone. Yeah. I mean, hopefully we would get some more warm stretches.

[01:20:26] I feel like my Memorial day, that's kind of usually when everything starts clearing out, except, um, maybe a couple sections like the twins and things like that, where it snow just tends to linger longer. But, uh, but yeah, hopefully we'll be good. Yep. It was just good to get out. It'd been four weeks for me. So I wanted to get something, uh, something under my, under my belt. I don't like to go too long without getting out for a hike, but I don't know if I'll be getting out this weekend, Nick, but, uh, I think you're going to be away anyway. But what do you got planned for hiking in the future? Anything good?

[01:20:52] Um, so I was, it depends on other commitments that we're, we're heading down to Florida for the weekend, hopefully hitting Disney, um, with some friends and just doing some fun stuff. Um, one of my other hiking buddies, who's also named Mike, um, we were just shooting some etches back and forth and we were looking, um, just at potential spots to maybe go. If we, we have some time and there is a big national forest, um, outside Orlando, where we're going to be staying called Ocala national forest. Seems like tons of hiking trails.

[01:21:18] It looks like it's kind of renowned for its fauna and wildlife, which, um, has everything as it seems like from boar to bears to coyote to all the types of snakes, um, alligators, et cetera, all that fun Florida stuff. But, um, maybe we'll get out. Hopefully we'll, uh, we'll kind of get a little hiking out there in the, in the tropical rainforest as it were. Yeah. I've been over there a couple of times. My parents live like an hour and 20, an hour and a half, uh, from Orlando.

[01:21:46] And then, uh, Ocala is maybe like 45 minutes. So it's a little bit of a haul to get up there, honestly, from Orlando, maybe two hours, two and a half. But it's the parts I've seen that are okay. Like I've driven through there a couple of times and, um, it's kind of weird. Like there's like some beautiful pictures I've seen, but like the areas I've seen have been more like kind of trailer parks around the edge of the forest. And then as you drive through, I think that there's some good trails and whatnot, but I've never been impressed with Florida overall.

[01:22:16] Just, I've tried to hike a couple of times there, um, along the Florida trail in different areas. And it's just very swampy and stinky. Yeah. My, my buddy, Mike was joking with me. Cause I was texting his wife. I'm like, Oh, send us like where the address is. And he like, Mike, he's like, Nick, there's no mountains in Florida. And I'm like, I know I just want to see where we are and plug it into all trails. There are a lot of conservation areas and stuff around there. So who knows? Maybe we'll stumble upon something and get out. And if not, we're still going to have fun. So no worries, but that did catch my eye.

[01:22:42] You can hike, um, you can hike on a thunder mountain if you want. Yeah, exactly. Or space mountains. So it's time for slasher's notable hike of the week. If you want to be considered for the hike of the week, simply tag slasher on your social media post. All right.

[01:23:10] Um, so this is the part of the show where we do notable listener hikes of the week here. So we've got about a half a dozen here. So I can run down the list and then Nick, you've got to pick the notable hike of the week. Okay. Okay. All right. So I like this. I don't, I don't have the pressure. So Brady girl one did Fletcher cascade. I don't know where that is. I don't know. That is no, no, I'm not. Well, we'll have to look that up, but I'm impressed Brady girl though. Even though I don't know where that is, I feel like I should know where that is, but it will.

[01:23:39] Oh, it's in Waterville Valley actually. Oh, there you go. Okay. So that explains why I wouldn't know. It's because that's just not a, uh, oh yeah. It's like Drake's Brook in that area there. So that makes sense. Okay. Yep. Um, all right. And then next up is heart disease hiker 75. So I met, I met, um, I know it's tough. I met all these people, all these people on here. It gets Mount Pogas, which is a great hike. I've been, haven't been over there in a while. So shout out to him. Christian hikes.

[01:24:08] The whites did Hancock on the same day that me and you were on Liberty. And I saw some photos of, uh, of that hike. It looks like he was dealing with the same level of monorail or even worse. Yeah. For that. Um, and our friend Paul P. Gamere, um, junior did Kinsman's from, from the notch and then ginger beer keen did monad knock and then hiking feeds my soul did a Piper and white face in the bell knobs with, in

[01:24:37] the bell naps with, uh, miles, the dog. So, well, I know which one I would pick, but I don't know what you're going to do, Nick. I don't know. This is tough. And, uh, yeah, I think I've met every, every single one of these people in person. Now, except for Brady girl one, I believe. Um, so this is going to be tough. And, uh, and I'm not, I'm not giving it to them just cause they did reach out and they asked, um, about a loop that I had made out there, but a heart disease, tiger 75, I'm going to give it to him with Mount Pogus. I think that sandwich range wilderness over there is beautiful.

[01:25:04] Um, a couple of years back, I did a big loop with like square ledge and some of the D listed 52 with the views and then made my way to Pogus and back down. I mean, went through that cool box Canyon. That's on the Kelly trail. I believe. Um, it's a really cool area. I don't think it gets a lot of traffic. Um, it was one of those days white face past economy. It was totally crowded, um, with people. And I didn't see like anybody all day going out on that side. So I'll give it to heart disease hiker 75, um, with Mount Pogus. And you're not just getting that cause you were super cool in person to me and we had a good chat.

[01:25:34] I'm just clarifying. He was, he was, uh, softening you up, but yeah, yeah, that's a, um, that's a cool area there. As a matter of fact, I like to get out in that area around this time of the year too. So you can take the Kelly trail, like you said, the box Canyon, and then you get all kinds of options. You can do Hubbard. You can do that one, a Lancet loop, or you can go over to Pogus or you can do square ledge and up to, uh, pass the Conway and then back down. Um, so yeah, there's, there's a ton of variety there.

[01:26:02] You can just basically start your hike at Livermore and then choose your own adventure. Yeah. That's a great area. All right. I know I would have picked, I would have picked miles because miles is my boy. I know. Squashed the beef. I was making fun of boxers and then I saw miles and I was like, oh no, I was just talking badly about box. We'll give runner up miles, miles, the dog. And there was much rejoicing.

[01:26:34] Let's dive into some white mountains history, shall we? All right. You want to do some history, Nick? Yes. Let's get into it. All right. So I being the nerd that I am, I spend a lot of time just poking through old Appalachia, um, uh, meeting books and, and, and journals and all this stuff.

[01:26:59] So I've got some online that are from the early 1900s up to about 1930. So I was going through and I was doing some research on the timeline for the Greenleaf Hut. So there was like, um, some discussion in there about like the proposal for the Greenleaf Hut on one of the agenda items for the, um, the meeting. So they had these monthly meetings and on the monthly meetings, they do like a report to,

[01:27:27] um, like the president of the AMC club. So basically the way the AMC was set up originally was that it was mostly like a social club that would plan trips for people in Boston in the like late 1800s. They did a lot of trip planning, but then by the early 1900s into the 1920s, after the

[01:27:52] Weeks Act had been, acts had been passed and they had acquired some of the national forest, the AMC became much more active with their various committees. So they had like a, um, like a trail committee. They had a nomenclature committee where they would like determine names and stuff. We're going to talk about that a little bit. And then they would have, um, like a membership committee. So anybody that wanted to join the AMC back then, you had to have another member that would nominate you.

[01:28:21] And then you had to provide some details about like why you thought that this particular person would be a good nominee or a good member of the club before you could actually even join in. So, um, just, so there's just a lot of organization going on around, uh, the trails around this time was also when like Charles blood and Paul Jenks and that whole trail crew were organizing and they were working to connect all of the disparate little sections.

[01:28:48] So that's when like the, the sandwich range would be connected to, um, over to the, um, like the, uh, Pemi wilderness area and all these different connections would happen to, um, to connect the, the trail system. So there's just a lot going on, but in June of 1925, the first mention of a greenleaf hut was proposed to be built at or near Eagle Lake on Mount Lafayette.

[01:29:17] So they had this, um, this idea for, uh, another hut at that point. I think they had like, maybe they had Carter notch for sure. Maybe they had lonesome Lake at that point, but they had this spot of Eagle Lake on Mount Lafayette planned for a, um, a hut. And then they also proposed at the same time that they would create a greenleaf trail for the trail leading from the site of the profile house to the summit of, uh, Lafayette subject

[01:29:47] to consent to the U S forest service. So by that time the AMC was working on the, with the forest service to coordinate a lot of the trail building in, uh, and getting approval from the U S forest service at that point. So, um, this was in June of 1925 where they first talked about a proposal. And then at that point, the timeline starts to pick up. It kind of goes quiet. They're focusing on fundraising.

[01:30:13] So they had a greenleaf account that was for fundraising. And then by 1928, they had a, um, a proposal where they wanted to, um, give a report and discussion. And this happened on November 7th, no, November 7th, 1928.

[01:30:38] They had, uh, the greenleaf hut and connecting roots report that they went over as an agenda item during their, um, one of the, one of their, uh, their weekly clubhouse meetings. So they went through that proposal and then by later on in 1928, so this must've been in, um, oh no, this was the more detailed summary here.

[01:31:05] So the way that they, they summarized the meeting is they said the recent purchase of the Franconia notch in Valley by the state of New Hampshire has brought to the fore, the, um, advisability of construction, constructing the greenleaf hut. So apparently when the state of New Hampshire bought Franconia notch, that's when they thought that they would be able to get the approval. But before taking action, the council desires to bring before the members of the club, the

[01:31:33] available information in regards to the plans of other organizations and the possibilities of action by the AMC. The council wishes to obtain whatever suggestion the members have in their points of view in regard to construction in the immediate future. The problem necessarily involves the consideration of connection with existing huts on the presidential range and in the Musilaki, Lost River region. So this meeting is for members only.

[01:32:01] So they went through and talked about, um, some of the overall plans for this. So this was basically like finalizing the proposal. And then by January of 1929, they were ready to do the official vote. And, um, they voted in favor of the greenleaf memorial hut to be constructed at Eagle Lake on Mount Lafayette 1929 with a plan to be open to the public in 1930.

[01:32:29] And then fast forward to February of 2029, they had obtained the budget. And I think the initial budget here, Nick was, I'll break this down. So it was $11,350 for the, the existing fund for the greenleaf fund. Then they had, um, additional $5,500. So $16,850.

[01:32:57] And then they estimated another $23,000 for, uh, repairs, construction, and trucks for the, for the total. So looks like they were talking around $45,000. And if you do the inflation calculator, Nick, $45,000 back then, like 800,000 now or something like that. Yeah.

[01:33:25] $850,000 to build the whole deal. Wow. Not so, um, that still doesn't seem bad by today's money to build something like that. No, not at all. And, and basically they, they had the proposal at the end of 1928, they voted to approve it in January of 2029 by September of 1929. They had the roof on it and they were finalizing construction and they had plans to open it the next year. That's awesome.

[01:33:55] There was, there was one thing too, you mentioned at the beginning there, cause they, they called it out is that it was going to go from the profile hot profile house in Franconia notch up to the, the, up to basically greenleaf hut where it is today. Now the profile house, um, maybe a few people don't know that was actually one of the old grand hotels that exists in New Hampshire. So it actually existed for about 70 years, um, from pretty much the 1850s and 70 years after that finally burned down.

[01:34:21] Um, but, uh, it actually was located at the base of the cannon aerial tramway. So that makes sense. If you think about where the greenleaf trail actually ends today. Um, right. Yeah. And that I would imagine that like for all of the AMC, um, trips that they would plan like a lot of times they, they would stay at the profile house. Yeah. Apparently, um, it was housed up to 600 people towards the end and it was considered basically the most luxurious hotel in the West side of the white mountains. So, um, yeah, if you did, if you were curious about just what the profile house was, I think

[01:34:50] you probably could put two and two together with what the old man was, but I, I didn't, I had heard of it before. I just was looking up a little bit while you were chatting about that. So cool. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. And then the final, so that this update that they, they gave in September of, uh, 2029. So the work on greenleaf hot at Eagle Lake is progressing and the hut will probably be roofed in by the 10th of September. This will be a complete hut in every way with chemical toilets and capacity for 36 guests.

[01:35:18] It will not be finished or put into commission until next season. The borough freight transportation is working out very well. So they were using pack animal or like burrows to, uh, to haul a lot of stuff up. And then they also, before they gave this update on greenleaf, they talked about the construction work that was also going on at Madison spring huts, which was progressing rapidly. So they put on an addition that would house the kitchen, um, the hut masters in the dining

[01:35:45] room and have capacity for 65 persons being connected to number three hut. This will make Madison one unit and will probably be in commission around August. August 10th. So 1929 was a big year for hots. Yeah. It seems like it. They also mentioned using burrows to get everything up there. So that must've been pretty much how they, they lugged all the equipment up. Yeah. Yeah. So they didn't have like the option for helicopters like they do now. So they would have those pack animals.

[01:36:12] So, um, and then I, as I was just poking around, Nick, I, I pulled up some interesting updates for, I'm a big name, place name person. So they had this nomenclature committee that was headed up by Paul Jenks, who was one of the big trail, um, trail builders of the day. And he was in charge of the, I think it was either Paul Jenks or Charles blood. One of those guys was in charge of this. So there was some interesting tidbits here that I pulled up.

[01:36:41] One of which was the decision to name Mount success here. So, um, they made the decision that originally this was called ball cap mass and, um, they basically, uh, there, it was like a bunch of different names here.

[01:37:07] So Mount success was originally called Mount Ingalls on the geological survey sheets and on former editions of the guidebook maps, but they decided they were going to name it Mount success and, um, that the southerly spur of the mountain would be known as Mount Ingalls. And then there was a peak of the ball cap mass marked as Mount success that would then be renamed as North ball cap.

[01:37:34] So they had gotten approval from this guy, Mr. Fritz and, um, oh no, I'm sorry. That, that was a separate thing. So they basically renamed Mount success from Mount Ingalls and then named some of the sub peaks and then separately going back to Mount Pogus, they had, um, originally had the name of, um, some of these trails here.

[01:38:02] So they, they named, they approved the name Pogus pass to be op adopted for the pass of the junction of Kelly trail and Oliverian brook trail. And the name Oliverian brook trail would be used in the guidebook for the trail from Albany highway to Pogus pass by way of Oliverian brook. So, um, and then they also updated that the range of mountains. So this goes back to like, um, um, um, the Crescent range.

[01:38:32] So the range of mountains extended from boy mountain at Jefferson highlands to Mount forest in Berlin, including Randolph mountain Crescent mountain and black mountain would be named as the Crescent range. And then they would, um, they decided to name the mountain of the Crescent range on Jefferson highlands to be called boy mountain.

[01:38:57] And then they decided to name the mountain between Carlton notch and longitude 7120 would be called Randolph mountain. So this is basically them making the decision. And then the granite cliff, which is this overlook, they decided they were going to call that lookout ledge originally had been called point lookout.

[01:39:17] So, um, they also decided that they were going to name the, um, the summit in the Crescent range between Carlton notch and the pass at the head of the ice sculch to be Mount Crescent. So none of these, the Crescent and Randolph were not named at the time. So this was basically the decision. So they basically were making the decision on what to name these and then telling the forest service

[01:39:44] that this is what is going to be officially named into the guidebook. And then it would be updated. So AMC was basically making the call on the names on all these. Yeah. It's kind of cool. A specific guy. There's one thing that I found interesting in this article when they're talking about altitudes, they're talking about stuff in 8,000 foot range, which is. Yeah. They're way off. Yeah. Which is kind of funny. But anyways, yeah, that caught my eye. I'm like, oh, well, I guess this was before they were probably measuring those things with accuracy, but Hey. Yeah.

[01:40:13] To me, it's, it's interesting how specific they get to even like lookout points of like, we're going to call it this now. And it's like, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they were, there's a couple of these where they're naming, uh, notches and ranges. So they, they named the Pliny range. So the, the section like Mount Star King Wombach plot, you know, we talked about this with the weeks, uh, range. So basically that whole range is the Pliny range so that they, they, they named that.

[01:40:41] And then they also talk about Willard notch, which is between round and Terrace mountain. So basically when you go from Star King and Wombach, you go through the weeks. Once you get past the weeks, you drop into what's now called Willard notch, which is between round and Terrace mountain. And that's, that's Willard notch. And then they also talk about naming the pilot range, which is farther down on the Kilkenny,

[01:41:07] which is Terrace mountain cabot, the bulge and, um, the horn. And it doesn't go out to Rogers ledge, but they call that the pilot range. So basically the Pliny range and the pilot range, and then Willard notches in between there. So they, they knocked off all of that. And then they talk about how they were going to name the bulge and, um, pilot mountain and peak at Hill.

[01:41:32] So, and then they also talked about how they named York pond as well. So all this stuff got named in the 1920s. Yeah. And I mean, I'd gone down a little bit of a, a, I guess, rabbit hole looking at this stuff before, but it always kind of intrigued me because like some people refer to that area with Wombach and Cabot as the Kilkenny range, which comes from the township of Kilkenny. There's also the Kilkenny Ridge trail, but if you look at like the white mountain guides and stuff, they'll call it the pilot Pliny range.

[01:41:59] Um, and I always kind of got confused by where all those terminologies come from, but this explains it perfectly as to why there's sort of a, the multiple names for that same reason and where each thing comes from. Yes. Yeah. And it's the other thing too, that's interesting on this is some of these trails are named. There's like the, this, this trail swapping going on around like ownership and responsibility for these trails between the AMC and like the Randolph mountain club.

[01:42:29] So they have a committee on trails here and they talk about a recommendation that the Appalachian mountain club would relinquish to the Randolph mountain club, the pond of safety trail, the Israel Ridge path, King ravine path, and take over from the Randolph mountain club, the Mahoosik notch trail, goose eye, Mount success and butcher.

[01:42:52] So originally the AMC actually had all of those trails on Mount Adams that are like the, the, we think of as the Randolph mountain club. And then Randolph mountain club had Mahoosik notch and goose eye and success in that area there. So I had no idea that Randolph mountain club was that far North over on the other side of Gorham. Um, it sounds like over time, like the Randolph mountain club just really consolidated and

[01:43:18] said, well, we're going to play in Adams and the Crescent range in the Northern side of the presidentials. I mean, that's what I always think of. Yeah. It'd be interesting to get someone on or even from the RMC or something to sort of talk about maybe that history of how they develop. Cause I, I almost so wonder with how this swapping is going on, if that has to do with the fact that the AT was sort of like Mahoosik notch and things like that. And they're like Appalachian mountain club, Appalachian trail kind of, I don't know if there was anything. I know they're different organizations. I don't know because I don't think, I don't think the AT was in place back then.

[01:43:48] There's 1929. That's fair. Yeah. I think it was just probably a geography thing to say like, look, you know, we're too spread out and we just want to be in our area like close to Randolph. And it may just made more sense that way. And maybe the AMC was looking at that and saying like, all right, well, from a, um, from a maintenance perspective, we've got all these people that want to be in that, that Northern presidential, um, section that are willing to take on these. And we don't want to be as spread out.

[01:44:17] And maybe that was the decision, but I'm also wondering like Charles blood, who was the, the nomenclature guy and the trail guy, they all knew each other. So I'm sure that like some people on the Randolph mountain club were friends with the AMC. So they probably made these deals just on a personal level to just say like, look, this is going to be easier for us. But I didn't, um, I didn't realize that, that, that there was this like trail responsibility swapping going on, but these all had, then this happened in 1921.

[01:44:46] So this goes back in time a little bit. Yeah. That's very interesting. Yeah. And then the last tidbit I have is a, is reference to Mount Shaw here. So they've officially voted that the name Shaw has been used in guidebooks and maps for many years related to Mount Shaw and the Ossipy range. And then they, they had an official vote for the town of Moultonboro, a town meeting to maintain that, that name.

[01:45:15] And after that had been done that the town of Moultonboro took this to the AMC nomenclature committee and, uh, they voted unanimously to approve the, uh, the usage of Mount Shaw in a permanent basis. So I thought that that was another interesting scenario is that sometimes these are well-established names, but they just wanted to make it official.

[01:45:42] And this happened in 1921 as well. Yeah. A lot of, a lot of action. Like I said, it always fascinates me how relatively new, like a lot of the stuff. I mean, it's, it's a hundred years ago. It's not really that long that all this was established. Even when you were reading there with the one earlier with the Greenleaf trail referencing that the Franconia notch was actually bought by the state of New Hampshire. And I mean, that's to me, that's such an iconic place. And it's only really, it hasn't even been a hundred years that the state of New Hampshire has owned Franconia notch. Um, let alone, I don't know when the state park was established, but really cool.

[01:46:13] Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of tidbits and I'll put it in. I'll put links to all of these in the show notes and people can read themselves. Like you can dig in and like, what I generally just do, Nick, is I'll just read randomly. I'll just flip through the pages and look for, um, some meeting notes and I'll look and say like, Oh, they voted on this. And this is how this came to be. And this was the timeline. And then you can do keyword searches and say like, all right, I want to look up for everything to do with Greenleaf hot. And then it'll show you everything.

[01:46:39] And there's like, they go, the, the history of the bulletins goes like two year increments. So you have to do, have to look through a little bit, but it's, it's a good way to play junior historian. How did you stumble upon this? Is this like a library site? This HathiTrust, I know you'll link it in the show notes too, but how did you end up stumbling upon this with all the Apple? Like, are they just an old library that scans all these documents and just has them or? Correct. Yeah.

[01:47:03] So the library of the university of California has digital copies of all of these Appalachia bulletins. And they go from like the early 1900s up to 1929. And then after that, they're not available online. Like you can subscribe to them if you want, but I've got some other ones that are a little bit later and you get to you. Some of them are on internet archives, some of them on this HathiTrust site. So they're, they're all over the place. Yeah, it was cool.

[01:47:33] I was perusing a little bit earlier today. I'm looking at a lot of the old trips that they report on, like going to the Adirondacks and going to like Blue Hills or it was kind of cool to see all the different places that people were hiking and how they recounted things, um, kind of humorously in certain instances too. It's really interesting. Yeah. And my impression on this whole thing is that there was like, like I said, originally, I think the AMC was very much about like organizing trips and just getting people out there,

[01:47:57] but there was this like air, there was this error of explosive growth that I feel like happened between about 1920 to maybe 1935, where there was like a core group of people that had like this guy, Charles Blood, Paul Jenks, they keep coming up all over the place and they're involved with AMC. And they're the ones that are like driving, like let's name all these trails. Let's build these hots.

[01:48:23] Let's connect all the big trail systems that are sort of disparate right now. And I feel like from like that 1920 period to like maybe the mid 1930s, that's when like just that explosive growth happened where they really just established the white mountains as we know it. Yeah, it's cool. I mean, I know you got a lot of different variables too, with like the civilian conservation corps being formed with the great depression and things like that, where a lot of the trails were constructed by them. And then you got the whole dynamic too, of like world war two with younger men who are

[01:48:51] generally at the time who was working on those trails and taking care of them getting to where it seems like a lot of things fell into disrepair. And yeah, it's, but it is really impressive how quickly, like you were kind of remarking earlier, how quickly a lot of this stuff happened and how expansive the hiking trails got in the whites in a very short amount of time. Yeah. Yeah. There's no, nobody's filing TPS reports to get things done around here. No, that's for sure. Yeah. So, all right.

[01:49:21] Well, it's good talking to you, Nick. It's past my bedtime. I'm going to bed. Same here. I'm like, I'm nodding off a little bit. Me too. So, thanks to the listeners. And then next week we'll have our friend Jen here to talk a little bit about volunteering and some other fun topics. So, until next time, we will sign off now and talk to you next week. All right. Bye, everybody.

[01:49:52] Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed the show, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, YouTube, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to learn more about the topics covered in today's show, please check out the show notes and safety information at slasherpodcast.com. That's S-L-A-S-R podcast.com. You can also follow the show on Facebook and Instagram.

[01:50:22] We hope you'll join us next week for another great show. Until then, on behalf of Mike and Stomp, get out there and crush some mega peaks. Now covered in scratches, blisters, and bug bites, Chris Staff wanted to complete his most challenging day hike ever. Fish and game officers say the hiker from Florida activated an emergency beacon yesterday morning. He was hiking along the Appalachian Trail when the weather started to get worse.

[01:50:52] Officials say the snow was piled up to three feet in some spots, and there was a wind chill of minus one degree. And there's three words that describe this race. Do we all know who they are? Oh, yeah! Lieutenant James Neeland of New Hampshire Fish and Game. Lieutenant, thanks for being with us today. Thanks for having me. What are some of the most common mistakes you see people make when they're heading out on the trails to hike here in New Hampshire? Seems to me the most common is being unprepared.

[01:51:18] I think if they just simply visited hikesafe.com and got a list of the 10 essential items and had those in their packs, they probably would have no need to ever call us at all.