RMC Newsletter - Winter 2003-2004

A History of the RMC Camps: Part 1
By Judith Maddock Hudson

The first mountain camp in the northern Presidentials was built to facilitate the work of trailbuilding. At a meeting of the AMC on May 10, 1876, William Gray Nowell reported on improvements that his department planned to make, among them that:

...permanent camps be established...at such points of interest...as Mt. Adams..... Such camps will serve as centres for the working parties and may be built so as to last several years. 1

By the 21st of July, 1876, Nowell and Charles Lowe completed the construction of a bark shelter, approximately on the site of the current Log Cabin, a little more than 3 kilometers up the new path they had cut to the summit of Mt. Adams. A temporary structure, known variously as the AMC Camp, Mt. Adams’ Camp, or Lowe’s Camp, was maintained at this location for the next dozen years until it burned in 1887 or 1888.

Building, 1888-1910. Nowell reported to the AMC in 1888 that a replacement camp with dimensions of 4 by 6 meters, facing SW, had been framed, and would be finished during the summer of 1889 as a “closed camp, logged up on all sides, roofed with cedar shingles painted red.” Thus was born the Log Cabin, at an altitude of 3,250 feet, the first permanent camp on the north slopes. Although camps were always unlocked and accessible to any hiker, their construction and maintenance were the responsibility of private parties who had received permission to build them from the Berlin Mills Company, which owned the land. The Log Cabin served as Nowell’s private camp over the next 25 or 30 summers.

In the following two or three years 2 J. Raynor Edmands constructed three birchbark camps in Cascade Ravine as bases for his trailmaking activities: Cascade Camp at about 2,900 feet, just above the First Cascade on the south side of the river; Cliff Shelter part way up the ravine (a camp that was only used for a few years); and the Perch at about 4,300 feet near the Randolph Path.

In 1899 Charles Cutler Torrey and George Foot Moore commissioned John Boothman to have a log cabin built on Nowell Ridge at about 3,200 feet, a little below and to the west of Chandler Fall near the crossing of Spur Brook by the Randolph Path. Spur Cabin, as it was named, was constructed during the winter of 1899-1900 and used by the Torreys as they cut the beginnings of the Spur Trail from the Randolph Path as far as the Cabin and other paths on Nowell Ridge. The first entry in the Spur Cabin Register was made by Elliot B. Torrey on Tuesday, June 19th, 1900:

Came from Mountain View House via Randolph path with supplies of various kinds... Mr. John Boothman came up on Thursday to complete some work about the camp. Slept in the cabin 3 nights and came out Friday June 22. From cabin to Mountain View House via Randoph path about 1h.30m. 3

Nancy Torrey Frueh, C. C. Torrey’s daughter, described the camp as follows: 4

The new cabin, constructed of logs, was 18 feet long, running east to west, and 12 feet front to back. The entrance, on the east side, was reachable via a porch. The inside, though not large, contained 3 double-decker bunks, a table and chairs, and a two-“burner” wood stove. On the side facing downhill was a big double window with a splendid view to the north. A small window to the west, another on the side towards the steep slope of the mountain, and yet another over the entrance, completed the building. Snug and cozy, it was. Water was brought in from a spring located about 100 yards away on the path to Chandler Fall. Chandler Fall itself boasted a fine pool at its base, where the cabin’s occupants could bathe.

Spur Cabin’s logbooks, signed by both overnight and transient visitors, present a lively picture of activities at the new camp. A large number of hiking parties from the Mountain View House stopped by, sometimes spending the night. The Torrey and Moore families made steady use of the cabin. C. C. Torrey scouted and built the Spur Path, opening it to the public on June 11, 1902, when Torrey wrote, “Spur Path now ready for public use; furnished with all necessary signs and cairns, throughout its whole length.” There are accounts of climbs to Mt. Washington and back; parties of women alone who were only occasionally impeded by their long skirts; a hilarious account from September 21, 1905, of Mrs. Mary H. Moore who climbed onto the table to get away from a weazel, was rescued by the menfolk, and “came down from the table in the course of the afternoon.” Visits back and forth to Edmands’ and Nowell’s camps occurred frequently. A couple spent their honeymoon; youngsters returned each summer, their improved handwriting a visible sign of their increasing maturity.

On September 5, 1901, Mary H. Moore writes that their party “went through the wood to the knob above Montevideo.” 5 During 1903 and 1904, Torrey and Moore report spotting and cutting a path “from the Upper Crag to the bare knob on Nowell’s Ridge.” By the late summer of 1905, the Edward Y. Hincks and Charles Stearns families completed Gray Knob cabin near the knob at an altitude of about 4,300 feet. C. C. Torrey reported that Mr. and Mrs. Hincks spent their first night in the new cabin on August 28, 1905, and in subsequent years the families at Gray Knob and Spur Cabin shared various mountain adventures.

The last of the high cabins, Crag Camp, was built at 4,200 feet by John Boothman for Nelson Harvey Smith in the winter of 1909-10. The Spur Cabin crowd were not pleased by the new construction at one of their favorite viewpoints, the Upper Crag. On July 24, 1910, Charles Torrey mourns the desecration, “...[from Gray Knob] on across the head of the valley, to see what had happened at the Upper Crag. (Haven’t had such a heartache since Pine Mt. burned over - and this is worse).” Crag was a more luxurious structure than the other camps, with a stone fireplace, a water tower and shower. More bunkspace was added, and an organ “under the west window of the main room, so you could make sweet music while gazing out towards Jefferson.” (There was also a great, scratchy wind-up phonograph on which we played our favorite ‘Doin’ the Raccoon’ ad nauseum). 6

The era of camp building came to a close with the passage of the Weeks Act in 1911 which established the White Mountain National Forest, although the owners were allowed to maintain their existing cabins in the National Forest. Nelson Smith was able to negotiate a lease for the Crag site through 1939 7, and presumably the Hincks, Torreys, Moores and William Nowell did the same. J. Raynor Edmands died in 1910, and ownership of his camps passed to his niece, Mrs. Southard, who in 1912 transferred control of Cascade Camp to the RMC, “to be held by the club so long as the club should keep it in repair” 8. The Club thoroughly repaired the camp that year under Mr. Blood’s supervision. In 1921 or 1922, control of the Perch similarly passed from Edmands’ estate to the RMC which saw to its repair with the help of Irving Crosby.

Too old to use the Log Cabin, Nowell transferred his use rights to Charles Lowe’s son Thaddeus, and the RMC purchased them during the early 1920's. Charles Stearns, who had shared Log Cabin rights, donated his interest to the Club, and the building was extensively repaired in 1922-3 under the RMC’s new ownership with Irving Crosby’s supervision. In 1927 a landslide triggered by torrential rainfall swept away Cascade Camp, which was never rebuilt. By the winter of 1929-30, Spur Cabin had sadly deteriorated, and because neither the Moore nor the Torrey families felt they could spare the funds, the Forest Service determined that it would have to be destroyed, and it was burned.

Crag and Gray Knob, the remaining private cabins, continued to be used by families and their friends until the late 1930's. The early stories collected in the RMC’s Remembrances of Crag Camp, 1909-1993 retell a few of the adventures of Crag’s early guests.

The hurricane of 1938 blew away the Perch. In 1939, upon expiration of Smith’s land lease, Crag Camp was given to the RMC. At about the same time, the Hincks family gave Gray Knob to the Town of Randolph which arranged for the RMC to run the camp, paying an annual fee to the Club for its maintenance 9. Up through World War II the remaining camps (Crag, Gray Knob and the Log Cabin), while kept in repair by the RMC, had no direct supervision, and the facilities began to suffer from abuse as well as normal wear and tear.

Caretakers, 1946-1980. By the summer of 1946, the RMC Board felt it necessary to hire a summer caretaker at Crag. The Forest Service would not allow the RMC to charge a fee for the camp. Lacking a means of paying the caretaker, the camp operation was turned over to the Appalachian Mountain Club which installed Norman Adams as caretaker during July and August. The AMC charged $1 for adults and 50 cents for children (though RMC adult members got a special, 75 cent, rate). New toilets were built by the AMC, though the cost of $150 was paid by the RMC. The AMC operated Crag that summer at a loss, and was unwilling to continue unless they could assume ownership of the camp.

In 1947 the Board came up with a different solution: a caretaker hired and supervised by the RMC to run both Crag and Gray Knob, with expenses shared by the Club and the town. The Forest Service still would not allow the RMC to charge even a modest fee, so the Board asked for donations from users. These averaged about $1 per person per night, and just about covered the expenses. Klaus Goetze managed to hire two college students he had taught at Phillips Exeter Academy: Edward Martin (in July) and Otis Pease (in August). Mrs. Elizabeth Hilles, as Camps Chair, supervised their work.

The issue of fees at the camps persisted until 1963, when the Forest Service finally granted the Club permission to charge users. The fee for Crag and Gray Knob was set at $1 per night. 1963 was the first summer to see caretakers at both camps: Bill Arnold and Peter Bowers each received $20 a week.

The situation at the camps remained much the same for most of the next decade. Two caretakers were hired each summer; and they handled routine maintenance (directed by a Board-designated Camps Chair). More extensive repairs were completed by volunteers, often with work parties to accomplish more complex projects, such as the rebuilding of Crag’s porch. Beginning in 1962, the overcrowding of the facilities by large groups from private summer camps became an issue. Letters, setting out some basic rules for camp use, and asking for contributions to pay for their campers’ overnight stays, were sent annually to camp directors. By 1965, this annual letter included a request to limit all groups to 10 individuals. In 1964, Gray Knob was extensively rebuilt, receiving new windows, cabinets, and insulation. The need to be able to communicate between valley and mountain became apparent, and in 1967 Hersh and Daphne Cross presented the camps with a walkie-talkie set.

Winter usage of Gray Knob increased rapidly, and by the fall of 1971 Jeff Bean was authorized to caretake the camp on weekends (for a salary of $5 per week-end) and during Christmas and spring vacation (for $20 per week). Weekend caretaking sufficed for a few years, but by 1975 it was evident that the caretaker more than paid for him/herself: $438 had been collected in 1975, more than double the previous year’s take. In the fall of 1976, Mike Johnson was hired as the Club’s first full-time winter caretaker at a salary of $66 per week. A caretaker was hired for each of the next few seasons: among them Mike Pelchat, Paul Flanagan, Mike Pratt, Jeff Tirey, Pete Wallace and John Tremblay. A challenging existence, the job attracted adventurous winter climbers. Paul Flanagan was killed climbing in Huntington’s Ravine in February 1979, and the next year Jeff Tirey miraculously survived a fall of about 1,000 feet while ice climbing in the Great Gully on a suddenly warm Easter Sunday. Winter usage increased, creating a new set of priorities for the RMC’s camp maintenance.

Footnotes:

1. “Reports of the Councillors,” 1876, Appalachia, p. 56. I have used these annual reports to document activities in the northern Presidentials for the period 1876 – 1900.

2. 1892 is the date Louis F. Cutter gives in his chapter on the RMC in George N. Cross’ Randolph Old and New, 1890 is the date given in the 1998 edition of Randolph Paths.

3. Registers from Spur Cabin for the years 1900 – 1915 have been generously donated to the RMC’s Archive by Nancy Torrey Frueh, and have been an invaluable source for this article.

4. In “Gone but not Forgotten,” her account of Spur Cabin written for the Randolph Foundation’s Mountain View.

5. Montevideo, as located on the Louis F. Cutter 1917 map, was a viewpoint at about 4,100 feet to the east of Lowe’s Path, about ¼ mile below Gray Knob; it is overgrown today.

6. Personal communication, Nancy T. Frueh, September 26, 2003.

7. “About Crag Camp,” Remembrances of Crag Camp, p. 3.

8. Louis F. Cutter, “The Randolph Mountain Club,” in Randolph Old and New, p. 186.

9. The Town of Randolph voted to surrender the town’s ownership of Gray Knob to the RMC in March, 1990.

Notes from the author:
This is the second in a series of historical sketches about the RMC. Using RMC archival material, I have been able to document the building and early days of high altitude camps on the northern Presidentials as well as the subsequent operation of the camps by the RMC.

The story of the camps will continue in the next newsletter. I am grateful for the considerable feedback I have received so far, especially from Nancy Frueh, and am actively seeking any additional 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.