RMC Newsletter Archive - Other Articles of Interest

A Cup of Mountain Tea By Jeremy Loeb, Winter 2008-2009 "Next time your mind begins to wander while hiking, try plunking yourself down for a spell on an inviting rock, a glade of emerald moss, or a musty bed of leaves. Shrug off any lingering impatience or distracting thoughts and take this spell to smell the air, observe the nuance of the trail, and stretch your ears for the rustle of foliage and distant birdsong."	Alpine Flora Below Treeline By Tim Stetter, Summer 2004 "Twinflower fruit emerges as a sticky nutlet with hooked bristles: a perfect parcel for grabbing hold of birds and mammals. Through feather and fur, Twinflower has managed to spread throughout the entire boreal region of the North."
Anna Bemis Stearns By Judith Maddock Hudson, Winter 2005-2006 "Anna was a member of the RMC beginning in 1920. Between 1939 and 1969, she served 13 years on the Board, with 6 years as secretary, 2 years as vice-president and in 1956-58 two as president. Tom Barrow recounted that during the 1940s, when labor for clearing trails was scarce, Anna and his father took charge of clearing the Beechwood Way..."	Antioch Comes to Gray Knob: 15 Years of Alpine Field Studies By Dick Fortin, Winter 2003-2004 "The class focuses on plant identification, recognizing plant distribution based on the previously mentioned abiotic factors, and implementing sampling procedures in sometimes less than ideal conditions."
A Trip to King's Ravine with My Grandfather, Louis F. Cutter By Louis Cutter, Summer 2005 "King's Ravine was my grandfather's favorite place in the mountains; I think it is also mine. He mapped it as his thesis at MIT in 1885, and at the first opportunity bought the farm below it, where we still come."	Bill and Paula Bradley Receive Lifetime Membership Honors By Al Hudson, Winter 2006-2007 At the RMC Annual Meeting this past summer, longtime RMC members Bill and Paula Bradley received lifetime memberships in the club for their decades of service in numerous capacities.
Bradford Washburn, 1910-2007 By Lydia Goetze, Summer 2007 "The world knows Brad Washburn as a mountaineer, aerial photographer, cartographer, and Director of the Boston Museum of Science. Less known is that Brad spent some childhood summers in and around Randolph. So we also remember Brad (an honorary RMC member, with his wife Barbara) in more personal ways."	Can't Get Enough RMC By Aaron Parcak, Winter 2006-2007 "Exposure to harsh weather. Shoveling giant mounds of human refuse. Putrid stench that other trail crew members can emit from the mix of many days’ sweat and dirt. Why would I continually submit myself to such physical hardships?"
Doug Mayer, RMC Volunteer Extraordinaire By Lydia Goetze, Summer 2008 "When I started on the RMC board, Jeff Tirey was President. I remember him saying at an RMC annual meeting, "There's no reason for us to be biggest trail club, but there's also no reason why we can't be the best." I took that to heart."	Jeff Smith, Volunteer By Doug Mayer, Summer 2009 "I worked with Andy Woods both summers up there and we definitely accomplished a lot. We took a lot of pride in our work and continued to come up with ways to improve the camps along with completing the daily maintenance and chores."
Letters to the RMC By Michael Field and Chuck Wooster, Winter 2005-2006 "The last thing I expected to see while wandering on the internet was my own picture. But there I am, on the front page of the Winter 2004-2005 RMC Newsletter, Mountain Hut Hosts Sounds of Music, carrying part of a pump organ."	Lost Hiker: Four Days in a Whiteout in the Northern Presidentials By Sally Manikian, Summer 2009 "Using this advance and retrieve method, he inched his way above treeline to find himself in a whiteout, with drifted snow blocking the path and ground blizzards cutting visibility. High winds make the use of a map and compass difficult..."
Lost Rings Found on Starr King Trail By Edith Tucker, Winter 2004-2005 "The two rings fell out of her pants pocket on Sept. 13, 2003, when she was peak-bagging on Mt. Waumbek, one of the 48 4,000-foot White Mountain summits required to be climbed for those aiming to be members of the Four Thousand Footer Club."	Mountain Weather of the Northern Presidentials By Steve Bailey, Summer 2004 "There’s something different about the weather in RMC country. Winds blow harder, snows fall deeper, and temperatures drop farther..."
Mt. Washington--Revisited By John Dykstra Eusden, Winter 2002-2003 "My brother David and I began to discuss a way of rediscovering the mountain. We decided to spend a long day on Washington, beginning before dawn and ending after nightfall, ascending and descending, going up and down and across the mountain using different routes."	My Mother's Bequest to RMC By Anne Barschall, Winter 2008-2009 "My mother's mother, her aunts and uncles had cut the first Lion's Head trail on Mount Washington in memory of my mother's grandfather, who was also a devoted hiker."
On Finishing the Four Thousand Footers By Will Strayhorn, Winter 2005-2006 "Emerging from the trees onto Signal Ridge on Mt. Carrigan I caught my first glance of the summit. As I climbed along the beautiful ridge, I looked at the magnificent mountains and the bright blue sky. In the distance a cloud floated lazily along the horizon..."	Randolph's Greatest Storm By Jack Stewart, Summer 2004 "The next morning dawned clear and I have never forgotten the sight of Howker Ridge on Mt. Madison; on large sections all the trees were lying flat..."
Remembering Ned By Doug Mayer, Winter 2006-2007 A new book has been published about Ned Green, who served on RMC's trail crew in 2000. Ned died the following winter, in an ice climbing accident in Huntington Ravine on the side of Mount Washington. Compiled by his mother Clare, Cutting A Bond with the Long Trail is a collection of Ned's outdoors journals.	Remembering the RMC By Doug Mayer and Ben Phinney, Winter 2008-2009 "When the Barschall gift was announced at an RMC board meeting, the room fell silent as we each contemplated the generosity of a single person, and of what the Randolph Mountain Club must have meant to Eleanor. It was a touching moment in an otherwise routine meeting of hard-working volunteers..."
RMC Announces a New Edition of Randolph Paths and a New Map By Judy Hudson, Doug Mayer and Steve Smith, Summer 2005 This new edition of Randolph Paths, which was first published in 1917, is much more than just another update. The guide features entirely new trail descriptions gathered by a team of a dozen RMC volunteers who started work almost exactly a year ago.	RMC Interview: Michele Cormier Winter 2006-2007 "Michele Cormier has served for the past 6 years on the Board of Directors as RMC's treasurer. Recently she passed that responsibility to new board member Bill Parlett. Not quite ready to give up all her obligations, Michele decided to take on the significant role of membership director..."
RMC to Celebrate Its Centennial in 2010 By Judy Hudson, Winter 2009-2010 "The festivities will kick off on Sunday, July 4, at the traditional tea with the scheduled release of Judy Hudson's history: Peaks & Paths—A Century of the Randolph Mountain Club. Judy will be signing copies for all who purchase them, and some special historical flourishes may be added to the conventional tea protocol."	RMC Volunteer Profile: Camps Chair, Al Sochard By Doug Mayer, Winter 2008-2009 "I volunteer for RMC not just for my love of the trails and camps, but because of the sense of community it brings me. Living in Randolph, it seems a perfect fit. Just as all politics are local, so now is my trail club volunteering!"
Saving People From Their Bad Decisions: A Conversation with AVSAR Founder Mike Pelchat By Sally Manikian, Winter 2008-2009 "With 30 years and a thousand rescues, and a personal interest in the history of search and rescue in the White Mountains, Mike is a resource of experience, anecdotes, and reflection on the trends in White Mountain rescues."	Scoured by Wind or Buried by Snow By Kelly Towle, Winter 2005-2006 "Alpine zones are places of intensity and drama, of fierce winds, harsh snows, and rough terrain. But they can be places of subtlety as well, where a slight shift in topography can lead to an array of differences in plant life."
Searching for the Elusive Bicknell's Thrush in Randolph By Mary Halm Small, Winter 2004-2005 "We stopped to listen at each of the next four points, and still no Bicknell’s thrush. The study protocol calls for revisiting the points to play a 1-minute tape of Bicknell’s thrush vocalizations in the hope of enticing any birds in hiding to respond..."	Stearns Lodge and its Extraordinary Volunteers Summer 2007 With Stearns Lodge now completed, it's natural for those of us involved in the project to find ourselves reflecting upon the endeavor, what it says about the RMC, the club's many volunteers and friends, and the act of coming together to accomplish a substantial community goal.
Stories from "Appalachia" ... By Klaus Goetze, Summer 2003 "The last time I saw Louis F. Cutter was at a meeting of the Trail Committee of the Randolph Mountain Club two days before his death. Someone asked him why the trail to Lookout Ledge used to be called the Hallway..."	Thanks to all who contributed to Stearns Lodge... Winter 2006-2007 A list of all the donors to the project.
The Most Fortunate Guests By Annie Jacobs, Summer 2010 "These small plants are why we are here in the White Mountains Presidential Range, why we hiked with huge packs up through hardwood forest and then spruce and fir, why we are now where few trees grow. Imagine being one of these alpine plants, adapted over multitudes of generations to survive the harshest conditions..."	The Pondicherry National Wildlife Refuge By David Govatski, Summer 2006 "The 5,500 acre Pondicherry National Wildlife Refuge is located in Jefferson and Whitefield. It was created on December 22nd, 2000 when 670 acres of wetlands and lowland spruce fir forest were acquired from the Hancock Timber Resource Group by the US Fish and Wildlife Service."
Two Lives Saved by Search and Rescue Effort By Edith Tucker, Summer 2007 "The lives of two middle-aged hikers who became disoriented while descending Mt. Adams on January 10, 2007 in whiteout conditions above treeline were saved by the combined efforts of two volunteers from the Randolph Mountain Club and Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue, and four state Fish and Game Department conservation officers."	When Stewardship Means Doing Less By Doug Mayer, Summer 2004 "On some fundamental level, the club seems to understand that stewardship is more than just keeping a cabin staffed and tidy, or a trail well blazed, brushed, and drained—that it’s an experience we’re trying to protect, and sometimes that means doing less in lieu of doing a lot."
Who Invented Hiking Anyways? By Sarah Gallop, Summer 2008 "For us, getting kids up the mountains-whether it's Pine Mountain or Mount Washington-requires creativity, patience, sugar, props, and the promise of a swim."	Winter Hikers Take Note! By Lydia Goetze, Winter 2007-2008 "...it is important for all hikers to remember that they are responsible for their own safety in the mountains at all times of the year. The RMC, NH Fish and Game, USFS, and the AMC all work together to educate hikers and others about responsible and safe behaviors in the mountains."
Zen By Dean Potter, Summer 2006 "Cold air from the valley drifts upward. It's predawn, and I've been moving on the Nose of El Cap through the night, focused on the rock in front of me in the faint light of my headlamp. Suddenly, I think of how tired and exposed I am, alone, rope-less, far past any point of retreat. A surge of panic courses through me..."