In 2019, Mt Tecumseh failed to make its number – 4,000 ft. The USGS slapped down a marker on the summit reading “elevation 3,997 ft.” Might as well read “foreclosed” or “condemned”. 142 years after first making the grade (so to speak) Tecumseh came up short. Now Tecumseh was at risk of being cut from an important roster – the esteemed White Mountain 4,000 Footer list, the highest honor for a White Mountain peak. For 88 years Tecumseh had been a respected founding member of the list first proposed by in a 1931 article in Appalachia Nathanial Goodrich. Would Shawnee Chief Tecumseh drop his endorsement after all these years? What happened? Too much Ozempic?
Mountain Passages: The Journal of the New Hampshire Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club
Updated:May 5, 2025
Your source for outdoor adventures and “how to” articles about hiking, skiing, paddling, mountaineering and other outdoor activities, as well as articles about the history and natural environment of the New Hampshire forests and mountains
New From Mountain Passages
Still 48 4,000 Footers? – by Ham Mehlman
read more
A New White Mountain 4,000-Footer Challenge? The White Mountain “4k x 4k” List – by Ham Mehlman
How about adding some integrity to a 4,000 footer list? Call out the sophistry. Anoint the real knarly dudes or dudesses. Formulate a 4,000 footer list that credits actually scaling 4,000 ft. of vertical relief (summit elevation minus lowest trail elevation), not just tagging summits – “peak-bagging” in the parlance.
THE WHITE MOUNTAIN 4k x 4k LIST CHALLENGE:
Scale the 20 distinct “aspects” (think sides) of White Mountain peaks with 4,000 feet of vertical relief and a one-way trail length less than 10 miles. These ascents total approximately 87,600 feet of vertical relief (the summit elevation minus the lowest elevation of a trail).
PEOPLE OF THE WHITES: Franklin Leavitt (1824-1898) & Guy Leslie Shorey (1881-1961) – by Frances Woodard Richardson
Over the past several years Frances Woodard Richardson has profiled many New Hampshirites who have contributed to the development of outdoor life in New Hampshire. Mountain Passages has published these profiles in a Series called ‘PEOPLE OF THE WHITES:.’ Earlier bios of Louis Fayerweather Cutter (1864-1945), Laban Merril Watson (1850-1936) and Leroy Woodard (1903-1985) can be found in the Mountain Passages Archives. More recently we posted her portrayals of Rodney Dallas Woodard (1905-1976) and Stuart Kimball Harris (1906-1969) which you can find further down in this post.
Responsible Hiking Practices During Mud Season – by Diana Moore
The mountains of New Hampshire attract hikers from all over the world all year around. Trails of all sorts offer a unique, if often messy, experience during the transitional period between winter and spring known affectionally as, “mud season.” This period, typically spanning early to late April to late May or even early June, presents hikers with a challenging landscape as the winter snowpack melts combined with spring rain to create a mixed bag of adventure for those willing to embrace the slop.
Dousing ‘The Inferno’ as a Racer and as a First Responder – by Chris Peter
‘The Inferno’ is an endurance race in a category all of its own… The highlight is a harrowing ski descent down the mind-numbing, leg-shaking and bowel-moving steep glacial cirque known as The Tuckerman Ravine (‘Tux’ or ‘Tucks’ more familiarly) on Mt. Washington. In the latest two editions of this race, I had the good fortune to wear multiple helmets – last year as a racer and this year as a ski patroller.
Last Skier Standing Competition Is Insane As It Gets and AMC Is Right There – by Lynn Fisher
In the world of endurance events “Last Skier Standing,” run by White Mountain Ski Co., is near the top. Held at Black Mountain in Maine, participants skin up about 1.5 miles and 1200 vertical feet, then ski back down, once each hour. Skiers continue doing this until all skiers but one have dropped out. AMC’s own Chris Peters, an AMC Ski Committee Co-Chair, was nuts enough to give it a go. Not only did he survive, he did great!
AMC 150 HISTORY SERIES: Chapter 3 – Death in the Mountains – by Becky Fullerton, AMC Archivist
The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) will celebrate the 150th anniversary of its founding in 2026. In installment chapters AMC archivist Becky Fullerton chronicles this special community that has been helping people know and love the outdoors since 1876.
TRIP REPORT: Skinning The Pike Glades – Feb 22, 2025 – by Ham Mehlman
The email from Nik Fiore, the AMC ski leader for the day, read “The Pike Glade ski trip is ON for Saturday!” The NH weather gods were finally treating ski enthusiasts to enough snow and cold weather for us to play on our boards in the woods on natural flakes. Nik’s destination was The Pike Glades in Pike, NH.
Profile of an AMC Hike Leader: Tim Kennedy – Six Decades of Tramping Through Snow – by John Williams
John Williams, Co-Chair of the AMCNH Hiking and Excusions Committee, interviews a hiking mentor, Tim Kennedy, about his experiences leading AMC winter trips into the New England wilderness. Tim has been an active AMC New Hampshire Chapter member for over 50 years and his hikes span six decades!
TIPS FOR DESCENDING: Your Hike Isn’t Done When You Reach the Summit – by Joe D’Amore
As hikers many of us have set personal goals to climb summits and experience outdoor adventures in various terrains and parts of the country. We proudly claim that we “climbed” a mountain. Descending is simply assumed and, at most, considered a minor aspect of the accomplishment. Yet good down-mountain conditioning and technique is equally important to personal development, safety and enjoyment on many hikes.
The Outdoors is for Everyone; Sexual Assault Awareness is for Everyone – by MJo McCarthy
MJo McCarthy writes a very personal account of sexual assault in the outdoors and suggests appropriate behavior for women and men and best practices to minimize risks while on the trails. She plans to lead a series of four hikes in April as part of Sexual Assault Awareness
SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AT AMC: “It’s in our DNA” – by Gabriella Gurney
Did you know that the Appalachian Mountain Club has a research team? The AMC has 6 full-time scientists on staff, studying mountain ecology, the alpine zone, plants along the Appalachian Trail, snow science, and more. They regularly produce academic papers, attend conferences, and give presentations on their work, interfacing with the scientific community and casual audiences alike.
Where In The Whites Challenge
SPRING 2025 CHALLENGE
Diana Moore snapped this photograph. Presumably the main peak in familiar to most AMCNH members. The SPRING CHALLENGE is to identify where Diana is standing to capture this wintery scene. (Hint: she is atop a summit.)
We post a new challenge and results of the previous quarter challenge on the first day of each season.
Early Winners:
- Keith Enman
- Loretta Boyne
Results of the WINTER 2025 CHALLENGE
Evidently the location of this photo stumped loyal Where in the Whites participants. Only 3 winners this quarter:
- Loretta Boyne
- Kathy Roseen
- Scott Silun
- Alan Stein
The reply from Scott Silum was more comprehensive than anything we could come up with: “This photo is taken from a viewpoint just north of the summit of East Osceola, on a 25 yard side path. The major ridge is the Tripyramids (North, Middle, and South, left to right), with Blue Mountain, the Three Sisters and Chocorua on the last ridge before the horizon to the left and Mt Shaw on the last ridge before the horizon to the right. On the ridge to the right of the Tripyramids is Lost Pass and below Shaw and closer to the camera than the ridge connected to Lost Pass is Flat Mountain. Flume Peak is the mound in the center foreground closer to the camera.”
NOTES:
- Effective with Fall 2024 issue we DISCONTINUED DELIVERY BY REGULAR MAIL. Mountain Passages is available as a blog on this page of the AMCNH.ORG website. We update the page with new material regularly as we receive and edit new posts. At the start of each quarter we email AMCNH members with links to new articles. Members should check with AMC Member Services (603) 466-2727) to see if they are signed up for email distribution and/or to update their email address.
- Articles and “Letters to the Editor” welcome! Mountain Passages is an AMC-NH member-volunteer managed and produced publication. We welcome (and need!) articles and “Letters to the Editor” from members interested in writing on topics they think relevant to the missions, activities and interests of AMC-NH members. (All submissions subject to editorial review.) Please send Word or Google Doc file to newsletterNH@amcnh.com. Be a published author!
MOUNTAIN PASSAGES
Editor: Ham Mehlman
Editorial Staff: Diana Moore and Robert McLaughlin
email: newsletternh@amcnh.org
Mountain Passages generally posts new material on this website at the beginning of each astronomical season
© 2025 by New Hampshire Chapter, Appalachian Mountain Club
“PEAKS” INTO THE ARCHIVES:
Includes an excerpt from Keith Gentili’s book White Mountains State about his journey to scale all 48 NH 4,000 footersTRAIL SIGNS
MOUNTAIN POETRY
The Old Man in the
Mountain Wants a Wife….
I’ve lived a cold and stony life
Above earth’s bickerings and strife,
But now I want a bonny wife
To cheer my lonely hours.
I want a maiden young and fair,
With sunny eyes and silken hair,
The grandeur of my throne to share
Queen of these woodland bowers.
A low voiced maid, whose lightest word
Is sweet as note of early bird,
That I with rapture oft have heard
Among these granite hills.
A heart from artifice as free
As heart of woman e’er can be;
Smiling on all – yet true to me –
The thought my bosom thrills.
Now is such maiden can you find
And she to wed me is inclined,
My fate with her’s I’ll gladly fbind
Forever and forever.
And if to her I prove untrue
May heaven withold it’s rain and dew,
And naugth but ill my path pursue
Till death these ties shall sever.
But if this maiden young and fair
With sunny eyes and silken hair
To scale this mountain should not dare
Not even for my sake;
Then when the winds of evening sigh
Look not for me on mountain high;
You’ll find me where the shadows lie
Deep down in Profile Lake.
– Mrs. J. W. Gray, Easton NH – date unknown
A Contemplation Of Pebbles
My feet glide off the watery floor,
With an emerald patina that restores.
The cascades voicings define the gorge,
Where tumbling boulders once went forth
The roots of trees embrace the scape,
Which primeval forces did once shape.
In a million years the rocks in pools,
Were churned and smoothed to pebbled hues.
Resting at Gem Pool and cascades on the descent from Monroe
Joe D’Amore August 16, 2024