Zealand Notch with Zeacliff above, October 11, 2008

Zeacliff Mt is up to the left overlooking Zealand Notch. Earlier in the day I bushwhacked several miles down the center of the notch, along the valley floor, and stayed mostly in the evergreens. The main purpose of adding this photo is to show how the coniferous, or evergreen, trees, mostly balsam and red spruce, line Whitewall Brook where the soil is well drained. The conifers also dominate the rocky cap of Zeacliff for the same reason and you will generally find evergreens in these types of locations. On Zeacliff you can see how the evergreens have established themselves in the area where the rockfall from the cliff has spread out over thousands of years.

Whitewall Mtn. from the Ethan Pond Trail, October 11, 2008

This is Whitewall, the crumbling west face of Whitewall Mt. In another story in this blog (if you scroll all the way down) I describe bushwhacking up Whitewall with Andrew Reily three months ago (back in July, '08). The long, steep gully in the center of the picture is a direct route to the summit and the way Andrew descended after our climb up the gentler north side of the mountain. I ascended this gully years ago and when I go to where it goes up through the cliff the boulders I was climbing up all started moving downward like an escalator. Needless to say I was scared out of my wits. In July when Andy suggested taking the gully for our descent I chickened out and went down the same way we had hiked up.

This is a ring lichen, or Parmelia centrifuga, October 11, 2008

This is a large specimen of Ring Lichen which is common in the White Mountains. It's almost 2 feet across.

A moose is a moose is a moose, October 11, 2008

I was tickled to have this large, gorgeous female moose for company for a few hours as I slowly meandered through Zealand Notch. Since I was bushwhacking and quite a ways from any trail I was in the moose's home turf. The moose was slightly ahead of me and down wind so she knew I was there. We were moving roughly at the same speed. She was browsing on hobble bush and striped maple (moose wood). I saw her tracks early on and not knowing the gender and not wanting to run into a large bull I kept a cautious eye for signs. When I saw it was a female I relaxed a little. We eyed each other several times and at one point I came to within 6 feet as I talked softly to her. I stopped and she walked away slowly and then I took this picture. She was healthy looking with a dark, glossy coat!

Rush hour on the Zealand Trail, Columbus Day weekend, 10-11-08

There was a bit of a bottleneck, closer to gridlock, at the intersection of the Zealand, Twin Way and Ethan Pond Trails as I was on my way out and heading back to the road on Columbus Day. It was a stunning day with peak foliage, as they call it, and warm, in the 60s (F), so there were good reasons to see lots of hikers, particularly at Zealand which is one of the more accessible areas in the Whites and certainly one of the loveliest.

"Closed to Entry" sign to keep hikers away from fragile alpine plant communities near the Crawford Path on Mt. Washington, July 1984

This sign was put up when the Crawford Path was relocated in 1984 to protect a nearby, extremely fragile plant community. Moving the trail a number of yards away from the site was a preventive measure with the hope that the plants would begin to thrive again away from the tread of hikers' lug-soled boots. The measure, it turned out, looking back 24 years later, was extraordinarily successful. The once threatened plant community is now thriving. Preventing damage to the fragile upland 'environment' of the White Mountains is a full time job for a number of people. The three photos that follow, taken in the late 1960s, show the kinds of human activities that have the potential to cause damage with long term consequences to vulnerable habitats. I took these photos at the apex of an enormous upsurge in the number of people coming to the Whites. The increase was caused by a number of factors. One that had the impact of a minor earthquake was the publication of a story titled "The Friendly Huts of the White Mountains" by Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas published in the July 1961 issue of National Geographic. The magazine mailed in early June just in time to allow for summer plans to change and the mountains and huts were inundated with the curious and the zealous. Innovations in hiking equipment, footwear and clothing also helped motivate people to head for the mountains and so did increased efficiency, safety and ease in transportation. Interstate 93, principally, and I-95 had made driving to the mountains by private automobile much easier and faster. In 1967 it was estimated that the White Mountain National Forest (WMNF) was within a four hour drive or 20 million people!

1940s era map designed to promote the White Mountain National Forest

This is a map printed in the 1940s I've had for years. The icons always catch my eye. If you enlarge the picture by clicking on it with your mouse you can see a little logging truck coming out of Waterville Valley, a black bear walking down the Franconia Brook Trail, and men on a log drive on the Androsgoggin River near Berlin. All of the old summit fire towers are visible along with all the AMC huts with the exception of Mizpah which was constructed in 1964-65. The map was an advertisement for the White Mountain National Forest (WMNF). It was part of a campaign that included eye catching posters for restaurants and inns with photographs of skiers in Tuckerman's Ravine, skiers on the Wildcat ski trail, and a long string of campers from a girls camp hiking up the Osgood Trail to Mt. Madison. The promotion worked and eventually people came. Tourism expanded quickly south of the WMNF during the 1950s. Skiing became a big business quickly in the region. Ski areas blossomed overnight. Living in North Conway during that time we could feel this surge of growth as new businesses sprang up to 'handle' the tourists. Hiking didn't catch on as fast probably because it was more work and less glamorous than skiing. Hiking was kind of a well kept secret. The map's references to fire towers, logging and timber reflect the principal activities in the WMNF until the 1960s. The AMC had completed its now famous hut system by 1932. The Forest Service (USFS) and the Randolph Mountain Club (RMC) and the AMC together kept up hundred of miles of trails and dozens of shelters in the national forest starting as far back as the 1880s. So an infrastructure existed for hikers to utilize but there were not a lot of folks coming to the mountains just then. Not yet.