Is it possible to be a long-term hiker without resorting to lists?

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I'm with you, roadtripper, totally. In addition to different places, there are different skills to be gained as well, and I find that process pretty rewarding. But it doesn't make for a lot of list completions. In fact, I'm hoping to get up Galehead in a couple of weeks with my 4- and 6-year-olds, which will mark the completion of my first round of 48. It'll be their first 4ker. I was about their age when I got my first 4ker, which is kind of cool.
 
Because they are close by. So are still some but not all of those 1500 miles of trails. The other ones not so much.

Tim

That's a huge factor for me. Would love to hit Baxter or the Adirondacks but time just doesn't allow for it. The Whites are comparatively easier for most people in most parts of Southern New England to venture into even as day trips. I find the quality of the Guides for NH to be much better and detailed as well relative to some of the ones I've read for Maine and Vermont. Might also help.
 
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That's a huge factor for me. Would love to hit Baxter or the Adirondacks but time just doesn't allow for it. The Whites are comparatively easier for most people in most parts of Southern New England to venture into even as day trips. I find the quality of the Guides for NH to be much better and detailed as well relative to some of the ones I've read for Maine and Vermont. Might also help.

I've hiked in just about every state, and I can honestly say that the White Mountain Guide is still the absolute best hiking guidebook I have ever used. Most books on hiking destinations in the US don't even come close.
 
I've hiked in just about every state, and I can honestly say that the White Mountain Guide is still the absolute best hiking guidebook I have ever used. Most books on hiking destinations in the US don't even come close.

The AMC Catskill Guide is pretty good, but not a match for the White guide, esp when combined with the 4000-Footer book. The Connecticut Forest and Park Assn, which maintains our 800+ mile blue-blazed trail system, puts out excellent Walk Books, west and east, which rival the WMG in quality and detail. It's rare for anything to come close.

My thinking is to start close and work toward far. Have hit the Catskill 2, have almost visited all the VT 5, chipping away at NH, starting as soon as I can on Maine. The Daks will wait, until my curiosity gets the better of me, or I've finished the Whites, or both. The VT hikes definitely went the appetite for northeastern NY.
 
I love hiking! I love being outside, in large part because my work largely keeps me inside, and inside a city at that. Every time I go to the mountains my batteries get recharged.

Maybe it's just due to Facebook, but boy there seem to be a lot of people for whom hiking has become work. They post about their "goals for the winter." They post the number of the mountain before even the name--and many of these folks are doing so having hiked barely a dozen mountains. Maybe it isn't true, but I get the sense that those folks will not repeat a mountain before finishing off their 48, not for anything.

I read the question carefully and then I read the entire thread and the first response that came into my head was, what difference can it possibly make? (my tone here is friendly) Each person hikes for their own personal reason and the role that lists play is a bit different for each one. Nevertheless, just like with anthropology, I find the commonalities between people and populations to be of greater interest than the differences, which have been compared to as just different foam on the same beer. The sense I get from reading TR's of people who are completing peak lists is that the list itself becomes a sort of meta-experience that binds the individual hikes into a unified goal. And, humans are DNA-bound to be goal oriented in order to have survived. The list is a modern-day fun facsimile for actual survival. (we'd have to put hikers into functional MRI to verify that :D ) So, for first-timers, all caught up with the thrill and excitement of the "chase" of the list it's easy to understand not wanting to do "off-list" hikes.

And then some people like creating (contriving) really big goals, such as monthly and even weekly grids.

One indication to the power of the draw is that a list may serve to galvanize so many people into going out and hiking peaks of lesser interest in order to complete the list (no views, bad trails, long feature-poor approaches) or in bad weather. The boring peak gives increased meaning to all the other peaks. I think this is a great window that informs us as to human nature.

Also, we are a highly social species so doing a list serves to bind people into a community. There's that common experience that can be shared and talked about.



I think there is a difference between saying, "I love hiking, and I use a list to get me out to mountains I otherwise wouldn't hike." and "I'm hiking a list, and don't even think of asking me to hike a mountain when I've already checked the box off my spreadsheet."

It feels like the longer I'm in the hiking world, the larger the percentage of people I see in the latter category.
Without an actual unbiased survey I think this is speculative.

Maybe this is a loss, or maybe it's just inevitable if one goes to the mountains a lot. It just seems to me that there are a lot of people who don't go to the mountains a lot and still take the latter approach, for better or for worse.

This takes me back to the first answer I gave above. The reason I don't think it matters is that the thought processes that underlie other hikers' motivations and hiking experiences have no impact upon my own experience. Perhaps their attitudes will, in some convoluted way, affect my own experience down the road but I don't see how on first view.

As for Facebook, that's a whole 'nuther thread on its own. I see FB more as "look at me" whereas forums are more about sharing of info. Nevertheless, FB is also about keeping in touch with non-hiking family and friends. But as more and more forum people join FB they end up becoming friends and next thing you know rather than post on the forums and on FB they choose FB. The potent networking of FB does the rest. It's impossible to predict where people will take social media over the next few years. Who would have predicted the selfie and the selfie stick 10 years ago? Young women in Britain have been reported to spend 5 hours a week taking selfies.

Edit: To answer the question of the thread title: Yes. I hiked for about thirty years without "resorting" to lists. In fact I only learned of the list phenom when I began hiking in the NE in my late 40's.
 
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Because they are close by. So are still some but not all of those 1500 miles of trails. The other ones not so much.

Tim


Some years ago now, going up to New Hampshire started to lose some of the magic. So my friend who goes by HikesWithKat and I section hiked the Long Trail over the course of the next three years. We went up once a month, and Hurricane Irene caused us a great deal of delay, but I have to say, it was incredibly fun hiking somewhere I hadn't been before. Each trip was a new adventure, and it really wasn't all that much farther.

Now that I don't get up to the Whites as often as I used to, I find each visit back there is something wonderful.
 
Because they are close by. So are still some but not all of those 1500 miles of trails. The other ones not so much.

Tim

I live in the 'magic' so it's much closer for me.

Tim

This is my reasoning as well. I can be hiking on the longest above treeline stretch in the east and home the same night if I want. In winter, the Presidentials are hard to match for extreme weather and challenging conditions.....and they're right here! That's not too shabby. :)

To Roadtripper's point, I like to hike new places as well, but the ability to get to such places is not as easy as it may have once been at a different point. When I have had the opportunity, I've gone to places like Glacier NP, the Everglades, Colorado, but these come around only when they come around.

Saturday I hiked to 5,000' on Mount Adams just to hang out at Star Lake for a bit. I left the TH at 10 AM after breakfast. We are lucky to be so close to such special places. Most people in the country do not have the access we do to such an incredible landscape....not to mention that ocean we have nearby as well.

I get that love of adventure still when visiting a new place and there are some good ones on my bucket list that I will someday see, but in the meantime, I can't see ever getting tired of hiking the Whites and New England in general. This is a good place.
 
I have a daughter now (her first birthday is next week), so I'm sure she'll slow me down from hiking as much in other states besides NH as she gets into school and routine activities, sports and such. However, I still think so many people in MA and NH don't put in the time & effort to plan hikes and trips to areas outside of NH.

Remember, all it takes is one (just one!) driving day and you can be in Acadia NP of ME, Adirondacks of NY, Green Mountains of VT, Shenandoah NP of VA, Red River Gorge of KY, Ricketts Glen of PA, Smoky Mountains of NC/TN, Hocking Hills of OH, Monongahela National Forest of WV or hikes along the Blue Ridge Parkway of VA/NC. These places are so dramatically different from hiking in the White Mountains that they shouldn't be missed!
 
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Does it matter why people are out, hence the phrase, hike your own hike? Wondering if list hikers are out there for the right reason might be the same as wondering if the runners or the record chasers are out there for the right reason? When Cave Dog was here, he did hold some Q&A and I asked him if he had time to enjoy the scenery and he said, yes, he did. Obviously less time than me but he did. (Don't believe he has been trying to walk through all of New England's Malls in record pace....)

People use the list for different reasons. Some for checking off peaks and not repeating anything, unless they are doing some type of grid, season, etc... Some use it to make sure they visit all the peaks as a Bonds trip is different than a Washington trip. Some use it as a where have I not been recently list and some can look at the list see the date they did a hike and remember the hike. (It's much easier to look at one spreadsheet than 1000's of pictures)

Some people make additional lists, I'm tracking days I've hiked, over 600 but not every day on the calendar yet, some duplicates 3-5 times. I do think that people who don't stray from the lists from occasion are missing out but again, they hike their own hike. Then again, there are county lists, 3K list, peaks with a View list, Bushwhacking lists, prominent points (Trailwrights) lists, Fire towers, CCC , trail red-lining, are their any hikes not on a list of some kind? A list of peaks not on a list is still a list.

The ADK 46 isn't a list of 4K's it's a list of the peaks believed to be 4K when the Marshall's did it, it's more of a pilgrimage to follow Bob and George. However, the 46er's don't follow all the same routes on many peaks, some now have trails, bushwhacks are different and trails have been re-routed. They still do those same 46. Is that stubbornness or romanticism? Those two words could be used to describe the 46'ers devotion to the original list yet they paint two different pictures of that devotion. The AMC on the other hand, when cols were found deficient on the 100 list or new peaks were found higher, they just added and subtracted to keep the numbers accurate. (whatever happened to the claims that the Lincoln- Lafayette col or the Hancock's Cols were too shallow?)
 
I have a daughter now (her first birthday is next week), so I'm sure she'll slow me down from hiking as much in other states besides NH as she gets into school and routine activities, sports and such. However, I still think so many people in MA and NH don't put in the time & effort to plan hikes and trips to areas outside of NH.

Remember, all it takes is one (just one!) driving day and you can be in Acadia NP of ME, Adirondacks of NY, Green Mountains of VT, Shenandoah NP of VA, Red River Gorge of KY, Ricketts Glen of PA, Smoky Mountains of NC/TN, Hocking Hills of OH, Monongahela National Forest of WV or hikes along the Blue Ridge Parkway of VA/NC. These places are so dramatically different from hiking in the White Mountains that they shouldn't be missed!

A day's drive? You just explained it. I can sleep in a bit, grab a bite on the road, hit a trailhead, do a hike, have a post-hike beer while changing, and drive home all before dinner. I'm sure the other areas are quite nice, but when trying to fit this portion of my life into the rest, it's not feasible.
 
I have a daughter now (her first birthday is next week), so I'm sure she'll slow me down from hiking as much in other states besides NH as she gets into school and routine activities, sports and such. However, I still think so many people in MA and NH don't put in the time & effort to plan hikes and trips to areas outside of NH.

Remember, all it takes is one (just one!) driving day and you can be in Acadia NP of ME, Adirondacks of NY, Green Mountains of VT, Shenandoah NP of VA, Red River Gorge of KY, Ricketts Glen of PA, Smoky Mountains of NC/TN, Hocking Hills of OH, Monongahela National Forest of WV or hikes along the Blue Ridge Parkway of VA/NC. These places are so dramatically different from hiking in the White Mountains that they shouldn't be missed!

One day drive each way. Right. Overnights away from the family are big time frowned upon. Maybe you're lucky enough the family comes with you but mine has plenty of local commitments that preclude such dreams from coming true.

Day hikes I can do without incurring any penalty.

Tim
 
In response to the original question, yes, it is definitely possible to be a long term hiker without lists. I've been hiking 20+ years, most of it without any list in mind other than "what's accessible and interesting to me?"
That said, lists can be fun for me, and lists can be meaningful for lots of reasons other than bragging on Facebook or some other internet forum. I'm not interested in "The Grid" or anything similar, but the goals I do set for myself are intensely important to me, and I wish all the luck in the world to those who find meaning in any list they choose.
 
Oh, yeah, now I remember – those are the places to avoid on weekends, in good weather, in fact, damn near every day of the year. :)

Try the ADK 3k' list for a change, many of them have no sign of human activity ;)
 
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What are these "lists" everyone is talking about?

Oh, yeah, now I remember – those are the places to avoid on weekends, in good weather, in fact, damn near every day of the year. :)

Most of the trails are empty at night. :)
 
Most of the trails are empty at night. :)

I ran into almost 30 people on Glencliff Trail two Sat nights ago in the dark. (Apparently there was some sort of Dartmouth club event. After passing a third large group coming up as I was descending I remarked how surprised I was to see so many people at night and he clued me in.)
 
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