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Mountain Hut Hosts Sounds
of Music
"I've been hiking down the other side of the ridge and have heard it come across," said Bill Arnold, Vice-President of the Randolph Mountain Club, a northern New Hampshire hiking organization which oversees over 100 miles of trails in the northern Presidential and Crescent Ranges around Randolph. Those were in the days when the organ could be played outside on the porch. Today, it's housed under lock and key in Crag Camp, a hiker's cabin on the Spur Trail near the edge of the ravine at 4,247 feet. But if one asks the caretaker, a key can be used to unleash melodies in the mountains. "I've played it a number of times, Gilbert and Sullivan, waltzes and marches," said RMC member Mike Bromberg of Mason. "Boston Pops fare seems to work well." Organs have been an instrumental part of the Crag experience. The one Bromberg found, and helped transport to its perch, is the third one housed at Crag. The other two are gone to the winds of history with the help of mice and men. The Crag Camp organ isn't the only keyboard to have graced a White Mountain hut. The Appalachian Mountain Club's Mizpah Spring Hut has a pump organ. Madison Huts once had an upright piano. Like all alpine huts, Crag Camp is a storied place. Club history tells of the original Crag Camp being built in 1909 and used for many years as a private summer camp by Harvard graduate Nelson H. Smith who traveled up from Boston. In 1939, the RMC took over. After 84 years, the rotting and rickety camp was razed and a new one built in 1994. References to an organ - and a wind up record player - are made in a 1934 essay by Nancy Torrey Frueh in the book Remembrances of Crag Camp: 1909-1993. “The first one, I believe, sort of was finally eaten up by mice and who knows what else," said club historian Judy Hudson of Pelham, Massachusetts. Hikers aren't the only creatures seeking shelter at Crag. Hudson has a nephew who was once a caretaker at the hut. He would trap mice and tally the score. She says he stopped counting after he got up to 100. As for the second organ, Hudson has a black and white 1957 photo showing three semi-smiling hikers with huge pieces of organ strapped to their backs. One can assume they were at the start of the haul. Arnold, who was a one-time Crag caretaker, has childhood memories of witnessing a square dance at the cabin, music supplied by former club president and musician Klaus Goetze. "He and a bunch of friends moved the organ out on the front porch and had a square dance out there. The place was jumping," Arnold recalled. Like the first organ, it succumbed to the elements. "The second one was vandalized and burned," said Hudson. The organ tradition didn't die with number two. Bromberg first visited Crag Camp in 1972 and by then, the second organ had been reduced to nearly nothing, he recalled. So when the camp was rebuilt, he found an organ that needed some work and approached the RMC board with the idea of housing it at Crag. Using huge wooden pack boards ("torture boards" as they are called by hut crew members), the organ was carried up in sections weighing around 100 pounds each and dedicated on July 9, 1994. One of the organ haulers was Randolph's Doug Mayer, now the club Trails Chair and a former Crag caretaker. A photo of him, organ on his back on the steep and rocky Spur Trail, graces the wall by the organ. He is not smiling. "The load was unyielding," he said one night at Crag having carried a pizza up in his backpack for dinner. Even with toppings, it was lighter than the organ. "I couldn't see anything. We needed spotters to give us directions." Nowadays, Bromberg, also known as the "Organ Donor" in the world of hut culture, visits Crag and plays the refurbished organ. He maintains the instrument, cleaning the reeds and changing the box of mothballs placed nearby to ward off scurrying rodents who might find the organ a tasty chew. The organ is fodder for entries in the hut log, the thoughts and musings of hikers visiting the camp. One entry, from June 20, 1999, makes reference to Bromberg. It says: "I witnessed the Legend of the Organ‚ working his craft, playing, checking keys, etc. and enjoyed the beautiful sunset.” So the tradition continues. RMC member Marty
Basch lives in Conway, N.H. This article appeared in his syndicated
column, and is reprinted with permission.
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The music is not an hallucination. Hikers trekking
up the Spur Trail on the side of King Ravine on Mount Adams can
sometimes hear the tones of a century-old pump organ being played
from a mountain hut.