RMC Newsletter - Summer 2006

Challenge in the White Mountains 1
By Judith Maddock Hudson

In today's world, a challenge - whether the marathon, triathlon, or another extreme adventure - has become an important part of the amateur athlete's repertoire. Club members are hardly immune to this frenzy. Indeed, for well over a century, Randolphians have been at the forefront in creating mountain adventures that emphasize physical endurance or speed.

You might ask, what motivates these activities? Youngsters are mostly into speed or quantity; the middle-aged (and those of us somewhere beyond that distinction) are more likely to try challenging their bodies in tests of endurance. At age 51, after completing the AMC hut traverse (twice) in 1936, Bert Malcolm wrote:

My answer is that it is thoroughly enjoyable and not really difficult, if you are in proper training. Dogs, birds, etc., seem to take a lot of exercise just for the joy there is in graceful motion. Why should not men and women get a thrill from using their strength just for the fun of it? There is an ecstasy in sustained motion among beautiful surroundings, in breezing over a mountain range seeing the whole gamut of views and lights and shadows in a single day, and coming in hungry and full of life at the end. In traveling through the mountains at night, you get a quite new and different impression of them. In moonlight, the views from the summits are glorious, even if they include villages whose every home is a man made star in an inverted heaven. If you happen to find fog, or rain and high winds, on a peak at midnight, your body and soul may have some of the feelings you used to get from reading of giants battling with dragons, or of fairies with pale tresses and long gray dresses, skipping from tree top to tree top or curling up like smoke from the ravines. There is an elemental joy in this struggle with mountain, darkness and storm, spiced perhaps with a dash of fear which weakens your pride in your strength just enough to make the battle interesting, a joy that lingers delightfully in your memory. 2

The Presidential Range Run. The first "marathon" in Randolph's records was a relatively relaxed walk, undertaken in September 1882; its participants were Eugene B. Cook and George Sargent. 3 The pair left the Ravine House at 5:03 a.m., traversing Madison, Adams, Jefferson, Clay and Washington, where they spent an hour and a quarter, "during which time we luxuriated in refreshing rest, feasted with the greatest relish and desire, and ended by enjoying the fascination of the inexhaustible view." They continued over the Southern Peaks, descending to the Crawford House, and then returned to the Ravine House via the Cherry Mountain Road, arriving at 1:24 a.m., where "our worthy host appeared and welcomed us in, [and] we found an inviting table awaiting the prodigal walkers." Total distance, 42 miles, 1,212 yards; total actual walking-time, 17 hours, 33 minutes, with an additional 2 hours, 45 minutes devoted to rests as well as meals at the summit of Washington and at the White Mountain House (at the junction of the Cherry Mt. Road, northwest of Fabyans). At the time, Cook was 52 years old, and Sargent was still a young medical student (who had first come to Randolph in order to improve his frail health). Their goal had been to accomplish the trek in a single day, and they were not walking for speed (they averaged 2.1 miles per hour for the total time elapsed).

Cook's and Sargent's "audacious tour de force" (so termed by Appalachia's editor) was not replicated for many years. The next documented range run occurred on July 12, 1904, when Appies Herschel Parker and Warren Symonds began the trek from the Crawford House at 6 a.m., first ascending Webster by trail and then having to bushwhack to Jackson and on over to Clinton. Parker wrote: "The exertion required to reach the summit of Mt. Clinton via Mts. Webster and Jackson appears to the writer to be fully equal to that required to traverse the remainder of the Crawford Path and all the Northern Peaks to the Ravine House." 4 The two reached the Ravine House at 8:15 p.m., "where supper was taken and a lantern kindly furnished us by Mr. Watson...we set out for our long walk back to Crawford's in inky blackness with the rain descending." After sheltering from a thunderstorm in an empty freight car, they made their way over the Jefferson Notch Road 5, down the other side, and reached the Crawford House at 4:15 a.m.. Total mileage, about 43 miles; total time, 22 1/4 hours, an average of about 1.93 miles per hour total elapsed time, though with less than 18 hours actual walking time. For both parties, the range walk was a gentlemanly pursuit, more a test of endurance than a quest for speed.

Many years later, the Presidential Range run has become a personal contest for many hikers, whether on a summer's day or with the tang of autumn in the air, facing winter's cruel blasts or by moonlight. For our own extended family, a day trip over all the peaks, beginning up the Pine Link and descending via Webster Cliff has become a rite of passage. Members of our next generation completed the traverse this past summer on July 30th, as reported by 11-year-old Jenna Maddock about her 10-year-old cousin:

We slowed on Webster Cliffs. The youngest members were feeling the burn until Tommy was given a packet of Gu. He then led us all on with a stream of constant chatter about absolutely nothing at all. We reached the bottom trail junctions with great relief and came home exhausted to a nice, warm spaghetti dinner. Total time: 14:00.

The AMC Hut Traverse. By the 1930s, when the AMC hut system was well established, a contest for speed was added to the challenge -- traversing all eight AMC huts in under 24 hours. The first record, 23 1/4 hours for 52 miles, was set in August 1932 by Ralph Batchelder and Ev Loomis; an average of 2.24 miles per hour total elapsed time, with actual walking time 18 hours.

Bert Malcolm, who was spending the summer of 1936 in Randolph, was intrigued by the hut traverse, and in early July set out to challenge the 1932 record. He wrote:

Batch and Ev had followed the plan of fast trips from hut to hut, with comparatively long rests at each. It seemed better for me to set a pace which could be maintained, with shorter rests, as men of my age are endowed with more endurance than speed. 6

Anyone who ever tried to keep pace with Bert or his son Sandy knows, however, that the Malcolms are among the fastest hikers who have walked Randolph's paths. Their feet hardly seemed to touch the ground; they leapt from boulder to boulder. On July 7, 1936, Bert accomplished the hut traverse, following the established course, and finished the 52 miles in 22 hours and 3 minutes, an average of 2.36 miles per hour, a bit faster overall than his considerably younger competitors even though his actual walking time of 19 hours, 6 minutes, was longer. Malcolm's first trip "had been taken in stride without any soreness or weariness the next day," and he decided to do it again, this time passing over Wildcat and the Kittens, and all the peaks on the Presidentials. The new course was longer, totaling 55 miles, and included more than 3,000 feet of elevation added to the 16,000 feet of the original. Bert finished in 21 hours, 43 minutes, averaged 2.53, and bettered his earlier time by 20 minutes. These records endured for more than 20 years.

In 1958, Chris Goetze challenged Malcolm's record. 7  A teenager, Chris had just completed his freshman year at Harvard and a summer's employment on the RMC trail crew. He had bested his peers in various speed trials en route to Crag Camp, and he had discussed strategy with Bert Malcolm the summer before. He began with some training runs, described by his father Klaus in some detail, which involved climbing Mt Adams from Randolph four times in a day, and twice completing “Swan’s Traverse -- a trip which compresses into a little less than 13 miles of travel a rise of 8456 feet. It was devised as a joke: the most horribly difficult way from the Ravine House to Pinkham Notch." Chris' time on the second run, 4:32, beat the existing record by 50 minutes. With a support crew of his parents and friend Bob Underhill, Chris began the hut traverse at 4:12 am on August 14, 1958, starting at the opposite end from earlier challengers -- Lonesome Lake above Franconia Notch -- and hiking north to Carter Notch. He rested minimally, stopping first for 30 minutes when he was fed steak, milk and grapes in Crawford Notch, and then again for a steak cooked in situ by Bob Underhill in Edmands Col. A few raisins were consumed at the head of Madison Gulf, and during the final refueling Chris ate pork chops and drank pineapple juice as he strode along Route 16 between Pinkham Notch and the Glen House. He finished the walk around 9 pm at Carter Notch Hut, having hiked 51.76 miles in 16 hours, 41 minutes, an overall average of 3.1 miles per hour. No record lasts too long, and Chris' mark fell in 1977. 8 I have no idea what the current hut traverse record is!

The Mahoosuc Range Run. The same summer, Goetze went on to capture another record, running 28.75 miles on the Mahoosucs from Grafton Notch to Gorham. The existing record, held by Bob Monahan of Dartmouth in 1927, was 10 hours and 27 minutes. After a preliminary attempt when he got lost in a lumbering area, on August 28th, Chris finished the range in 8 hours, 6 1/2 minutes, an overall average of 3 1/2 miles per hour.

Years later the Mahoosuc Range run lured my brother, Steve Maddock, who had done it twice before, but as a backpacker over the course of three days. In August 1974, with his 14-year-old son Jamie and two fellow AMC staffers, he began in Grafton Notch at 7 am. One of the men bailed out after Mahoosuc Notch, walking out from Mt. Success on the Success Pond Road into Berlin. The others continued their trek, having to hunker down in a box ravine during a severe thunderstorm. They reached Gentian Pond around 6 pm, and, after consuming about a gallon of orange juice offered by the caretaker, hustled onwards. By 10 or 10:30 they had reached the ledges on Hayes, as described in our logbook by Jamie:

We could see the lights of Gorham and the light on the radio tower on Pine Mountain. Just as we entered the woods my light failed, which was the only bright one, and would only work once in a while. So we stumbled down in almost dark. We then got on an old logging road which was nice except that in places it was marshy and we had to wade through. All the way down we were wondering if they would send a rescue and by this time it was about 11:15 to 11:45 when we saw the lights of the power station...We went across the catwalk under the railway bridge and to the car at 11:59, a little over 17 hours on the trail. When we called Randolph they were just debating whether to call a rescue or not. Total mileage: 30.9.

The Crag Camp "Record". RMC caretakers, who constantly travel up and down to the camps, have many opportunities to set personal records. Crag Camp 9 is roughly 3 miles from the valley, if one starts at Route 2 and climbs via the Amphibrach and Spur Path. Given trail relocations and varying starting points along this route, it is hard to establish the all-time speed record in which the distance has been covered over the years. Two extremes for time taken on the ascent appear almost side by side in the 1949 logbook. An out-of shape hiker recounts on the first of August, that he took "11 hrs 41 mins 8 seconds from Cold Brook Falls, carrying 45 lbs with 29 records for phonograph, all second hand. I weigh 233 lbs and 51 yrs 11 mo old." Two days later, an astonished guest writes that caretaker Bill Farrell made the hike in 55 minutes, with a 25-pound pack.

This past summer (2005) the climb to Crag was clocked in 43:30 by trail crew member Curtis Moore, 10 a time that John Eusden reports that his son Alan and Jeff Bean had both equaled when they were caretaking in 1973. (The two were perhaps delinquent in getting back to their jobs following a Mossbacks softball game). John said that their record for the descent - in 15 minutes by Jeff and in 16 by Alan - used "airplane jumps on the first third, coming down over the big boulder sections." The boys kept challenging Alan's father to attempt the climb. John says that he "kept putting it off until I did 55 minutes at age 55, and never tried it again and never will!" So much for the speed demons...

Structured Challenges. Completing New Hampshire's 4,000ers has been a goal attempted by many hikers, in increasingly large numbers since the AMC organized its 4,000 Footer Club in 1957. Some parents, eager to inculcate their children with the joys of hiking, have shamelessly used the 4,000ers as the proverbial carrot to get the kids out on the trail. Surprisingly, many of us found that it worked, and by the time all 48 peaks had been conquered, our progeny were experienced walkers, eager for more. Not all youngsters were sucked in. Midge Cross, a teenager in the mid-1950s, had a wonderful riposte when someone asked her if she was "doing the 4000ers." "I'm not, but my grandmother is" [NooNoo, at the time, was about 62].

Soon merely climbing all the mountains was insufficient. Robert and Miriam Underhill, who had blazed the way to some inaccessible peaks among the 4000ers, were the first to complete winter ascents of all the summits, in December, 1960 when both were in their seventies. 11 Hank Folsom, during the summer of 1970, started at the northernmost peak (Cabot) and walked "all the way to the other end in the fewest possible miles while passing over each of the 46 summits." 12  His ground rules included walking the route between each trail and allowed no bushwhacking to shorten the distance. His odyssey covered a bit over 244 miles, and he walked on 19 different days. Not trying for speed, he moved at an average speed of just under 2 miles an hour. Doug Mayer, Al Sochard, and Bill Parlett have twice done all 48 peaks in 8 days, and have recently been contemplating trying it as a continuous hike like Hank Folsom's. Doug specializes in long distance schemes -- in a tongue-in-cheek Appalachia article some years ago, he termed a day hike of more than 20 (but generally closer to 30) miles a "powerhike." 13

In addition to the pleasures of "working hard, surrounded by such magnificent scenery," are the delights of going home:

Post hike pains also bestow ample justification for a guilt-free day or two of decadent leisure. And remember to leave plenty of time for the recommended recovery diet plan: plowing through copious quantities of Ben and Jerry's ice cream....The powerhike leads perfectly into another excellent and extraordinarily pleasurable pastime: powersleeping.

There must be as many similar challenges on the 4000ers as there are hikers to devise them. Perhaps the most ambitious goal achieved was Guy Waterman's. In March 1987, he finished winter bushwhacks up all 48 peaks, having approached each from all four points of the compass. In his biography of Guy, Chip Brown wrote:

But rather than the euphoria he expected to feel upon completing his great project, Waterman was overcome by a sense of loss..."This is not to say that I still did not love being up on any mountain, especially if the weather or conditions were challenging...But I found I badly missed having that big goal in front of me, giving shape to my individual trips." 14

Will Strayhorn who, together with his younger brother Thomas, finished his 4000er trek during the summer of 2005, recently wrote:

After completing our goal, I couldn't believe we were through. Then I realized we weren't. There were still many goals we could set in the Whites. We could hike them again, or in winter, at night, in 8 days, or in another new way....After swimming in the river at the bottom, I got into the car, excited about finishing, and being able to start again. We were far from through. 15

What many of us need is just this - a challenging goal to pursue.

Endurance Contests. For many RMC hikers, a long walk provides both physical challenge and the opportunity to investigate isolated spots. During the 1970s and 1980s, Club trips often included two or three really long treks that appealed to a self-selected clientele. In 1980 Sandy Malcolm led a 17-1/2 mile romp from Evans Notch over Carter Dome to Route 16. Six of us - Al and I, our daughter Kate and niece Kathy Maddock, Sandy, and Chips Muehl - rendezvoused at 7:30 a.m., and drove to Evans Notch. My memories of the day include soaking our feet in Ketchum Pond, wandering along the bogs on the Wild River Trail, and lunch on the knee of Carter Dome where we shared delicacies and enjoyed obscure views into the Wild River Valley and the back side of Carter Notch. We met nobody between Eagle Crag and the summit of Carter Dome. The girls and Sandy galloped down the 19-Mile Brook Trail to swim, while their elders cruised down to finish in under 8 hours.

For a long walk, the Davis Path in a day (whether approached via Glen Boulder or Ammonoosuc Ravine) is a fine experience. I have two favorite stories about the Davis Path. Around 1980, Chips Muehl tackled this hike as a solo venture, exchanging her hiking boots for sneakers (and abandoning her heavy boots) somewhere between Isolation and Resolution:

As for the oft-told tale of my 24-miler, you may recall my problem -- idiot that I was -- I took only a very small bottle of water and became so dehydrated I weighed 10 pounds less by the end of the day. Determined not to suffer the ignominy of having a search and rescue team come for me, I managed to keep to the trail after dark (no flashlight, of course - that would have been too sensible!) and emerged at 8:30 to find Bill waiting for me.

A second solo traverse of the Davis Path (and beyond) was accomplished in remarkably casual fashion one day by Chips' cousin, Sandy Malcolm. In July 1980, Sandy and his two sons joined us on an RMC hike we led up Mt. Crawford. After lunch, Sandy asked us if we would take Skye and Robbie back to Randolph, because he'd like to "walk home." He must have discussed the possibility with his mother, because he said he promised Patti he'd be home in time for her dinner party. Six and a half hours later, he was a little late for cocktails.

Thanks to Chips Muehl, Laura Waterman, and Doug Mayer for their contributions. I am interested in any additional amazing records, comments, corrections, anecdotal materials, or relevant photographs that my readers might have. Please contact me at 111 Amherst Road, Pelham, MA 01002; (413)256-6950; or by E-mail.

Judith Hudson has been coming to Randolph since the age of four or five. Her parents, the Drs. Stephen and Charlotte Maddock, first visited Randolph in 1923 or 1924 at the invitation of the Cutter family. Active members of the RMC, Judy and her husband Al have served in a variety of RMC jobs, including the presidency. Al is currently the Club’s Archivist, and Judy is working on a history of the RMC.

1 This account draws upon printed records and personal recollections. It attempts to be neither comprehensive nor systematic.

2 Malcolm, "Breaking One's Own Record," Appalachia:21;194 (Dec 1936).

3 Eugene B. Cook, "The Record of a Day's Walk," Appalachia:4;54-57 (Dec 1884). In a footnote, the editor says this note may "seem like a betrayal of its modest author. It is taken from a letter of Mr. Cook, written in response to a note of inquiry."

4 Parker, "A Day's Trip over the Presidential Range," Appalachia:11;14 (June 1905).

5 The Jefferson Notch Road was probably not complete in 1904. Construction had begun from both ends in 1901, and Louis Cutter's 1906 revision of his 1898 map finally shows the completed road, while his 1908 map includes a note, "not for cars."

6 "Breaking One's Own Record," p.189.

7 Klaus Goetze gives a detailed account of Christopher's accomplishments in "Far and Fast," Appalachia:32;203-211 (Dec. 1958).

8 Laura and Guy Waterman, Forest and Crag, Boston: AMC, 1989, p. 643.

9 I used Crag's records solely because I have more data at hand. The trek to Gray Knob surely has its own set of records. My principal sources here have been John Eusden and Doug Mayer. I'm willing to entertain better times from anyone who thinks s/he has done so.

10 As reported by Doug Mayer in the RMC Newsletter for Winter 2005-06, p. 19.

11 Miriam Underhill, "Climbing the Four-Thousand-Footers in Winter," Appalachia:36;581-589 (Dec 1967).

12 Henry T. Folsom, "The Four Thousand Footers, 'Diretissima'," Appalachia:38;65-69 (June 1970).

13 Mayer, "Powerhiking in the Whites," Appalachia:48;30-33 (June 1990). Last summer Doug developed a scheme to walk all of the RMC's trails in 3 consecutive, albeit grueling, days. Mileage on this trek is well above the c105 mile sum of individual trails, because many sections need to be covered several times.

14 Chip Brown, Good Morning Midnight, New York: Riverhead Books, 2003, p. 234. In Forest and Crag, p. 642, Waterman relates, without identifying himself, "a devotee [who] also did them all from all four points of the compass."

15 Will Strayhorn, "On Finishing the Four Thousand Footers," RMC Newsletter for Winter 2005-2006. p. 9.