NE 100 Highest Route Info?

erugs said:

Good thing to be concerned about, but I wonder how many people who are not serious will do anything with it? I know I have printed out stuff that I have never followed up on because although it held some interest, that wasn't impetus enough.

Some of a similar fear was voiced when I wrote and had published a guidebook to New England beaches back in the 90s. It gave descriptions, told about facilities, and provided detailed directions to over 400 regional ocean beaches. At the time, this information was not in any one sources. A frequent comment was "Oh, no, now that you've publicized my favorite beach it will become crowded!" It was a false fear. Most people don't change their routine that easily.

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Well put. Last time I saw a copy of the AMC"s 100 Highest info package it included a sermon on ethics which address alot of the above mentioned concerns by Peakbagr. Is education not knowledge for the bettering of the community. Why hold this imformation at bay from the the Internet which would provide another avenue of education. Besides the AMC is missing another chance to make a buck. IMO by them not providing the so called rules of their game in this elitist fashion they are only farcically facilitating the pirating of the information.

skiguy said:

IMO by them not providing the so called rules of their game in this elitist fashion they are only farcically facilitating the pirating of the information.

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So by not giving away their work they are forcing others to steal it?

Absolutrly Dave. Known imformation that is well given wether you want to pay for it or not is available without going through the AMC's self imposed gauntlent. Their mentalitality is primitive. So why not facilitate an air of candidness on the 4000 footers commitee that would make the issues that they have more available so they may actually achieve their self imposed goals.Are you going to pay $5 for a self addressed envelope or on their website store. Again the mentality they have over the 100 hundred highest is elitist. The list was provided within the AMC White Mountain Guide for a long time and now it is not. So now again the keepers of the game have again displayed their unwarranted elitism. Pay me five bucks here or over there. Totally ridiculous IMO. The list used to be an analog situation. Quite awhile ago GPS technology changed that list. So why not go digital through and through. Hanging on to LNT ethics from a Snail Mail mentality is only self defeating for the whole community.

There is far, far more information on these peaks already available on the Internet, not even counting the number of people here who wouldn't just post information but who would answer direct questions about them, then this packet has or will have to offer. You're all arguing over whether or not to let the horse out of the barn, when the rest of the herd has already called for taxis. You don't need to pirate the AMC packet to find your way to the Hundred Highest. The important thing is that it's anyone's right to take the printed fruit of their labors and choose how to publish it and whether or not to give it away for free. 'nuff said there.

Do I personally think that the NE100 should still remain somewhat of a challenge? Yes, I do. To that end, will I give you a fish? No. But will I help you to fish? Sure. I won't give you my GPS track, but I'll give you the generic "this is where you go and what you do" answer. Maybe I'll give you a mileage, or a hint about an intersection or woods road. You still have to figure out the actual implementation details: where to put each footstep. That's pretty much the same help I asked for and received when I did it. The game here is hiking, and that's all aspects, including the planning. If you don't like the game you don't have to play, you don't have to pursue the patch. You can go hike those peaks and not care about the patch or any of the information available.

And you know what, the NH48, the NE100, the ADK46 … they're all accomplishments. Some people have completed the lists, and some haven't. Are the people who did considered better hikers? Nope. But are they more accomplished hikers? Among those who play the list game, absolutely. They've accomplished finishing a list. Does that make it elitist?

For the NEHH, we drive on logging roads despite the existence of highways... because they happen to be the only way to access them. So it is with the postal communications in the era of email. Frustrating, but occasionally inevitable.

I will say finally getting that packet in the mail and reading it is as unique a part of the NEHH experience as eating bugs and spruce to get to a viewless peak.

Don't believe me? Try drinking and reading it... harder than bushwhacking if you ask me.

If you're not into the whole AMC game and just want to visit the peaks, there is plenty of free (and some would say more useful) info online. But, if you embrace the archaic postal communications like you embrace the prospect of visiting Dorset, White Cap, and the Weeks - you will have an interesting experience, shared by many people over decades, commemorated with a spiffy patch and scroll to amuse and delight your friends with.

It's a game. You can play it or not. Either way, enjoy the hikes.

MichaelJ said:

There is far, far more information on these peaks already available on the Internet, not even counting the number of people here who wouldn't just post information but who would answer direct questions about them, then this packet has or will have to offer. You're all arguing over whether or not to let the horse out of the barn, when the rest of the herd has already called for taxis. You don't need to pirate the AMC packet to find your way to the Hundred Highest. The important thing is that it's anyone's right to take the printed fruit of their labors and choose how to publish it and whether or not to give it away for free. 'nuff said there.

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Agreed; but what has been stated but not argued is that the AMC does not see eye to eye on this.

Skiguy -

While I'm in agreement that there's an implicit obligation in making the "Routes to the NEHH" easily accessible at a reasonable cost, and if that goal isn't met then there's a strong tendency toward piracy - I would like to make a minor point about the characterization of the AMC 4K Committee. At the risk of re-stating what may be widely known (but I doubt that it is) there are two distinct "faces" of the AMC. One is what I think of as the 'corporate' side (Joy Street) and the other is the volunteer side (the local chapters and other subgroups). The AMC 4K Committee is a volunteer activity - unpaid, etc. To lump them in with the corporate side is inaccurate (and some might consider unfair!).

Kevin Rooney said:

Skiguy -

While I'm in agreement that there's an implicit obligation in making the "Routes to the NEHH" easily accessible at a reasonable cost, and if that goal isn't met then there's a strong tendency toward piracy - I would like to make a minor point about the characterization of the AMC 4K Committee. At the risk of re-stating what may be widely known (but I doubt that it is) there are two distinct "faces" of the AMC. One is what I think of as the 'corporate' side (Joy Street) and the other is the volunteer side (the local chapters and other subgroups). The AMC 4K Committee is a volunteer activity - unpaid, etc. To lump them in with the corporate side is inaccurate (and some might consider unfair!).

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Kevin that is an excellent point and Thankyou for making that distinction. As a long term member of the AMC, a participant in their workshops, and a volunteer for the AMC I have certainly been exposed to the two sides you describe. I also feel it is important that those two sides are kept in check especially going forward as an organization. IMO it is important to question their decisions because what they do and profess highly impacts the hiking community in New England.

The 4 k committees history was "fighting the man from within". When the 4k committee started AMC still required that new members be sponsored by existing members (arguably a vestige of the clubs past history of not allowing "people of color into the organization"), when someone filled out the 4k application there was a question if the person applying was a member, if they checked the box, the 4 K commitee members supplied a recomendation to join with the certificate. This was recounted by one of the original 4K member in the 100th anniversity WMG guide book that came out a few years back. They used to keep their funds seperate from AMC funds and usually would make a donation to a trail project somewhere. I usually sent them some extra bucks with my applications.

peakbagger said:

The 4 k committees history was "fighting the man from within". When the 4k committee started AMC still required that new members be sponsored by existing members (arguably a vestige of the clubs past history of not allowing "people of color into the organization"), when someone filled out the 4k application there was a question if the person applying was a member, if they checked the box, the 4 K commitee members supplied a recomendation to join with the certificate. This was recounted by one of the original 4K member in the 100th anniversity WMG guide book that came out a few years back. They used to keep their funds seperate from AMC funds and usually would make a donation to a trail project somewhere. I usually sent them some extra bucks with my applications.

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Sounds almost like the "Hunger Game"...,May the odds ever be in your favor

I agree with MichaelJ and McRat. I haven’t done these peaks yet but will soon. i enjoy doing the research and planning. I don’t want it to be easy! That’s why I have declined offers to hike these from people on here. I want the challenge of finding my way up there with a minimum amount of help. Having said that does anyone have a track log for.........
Cheers, Stu

What? You needed a recommendation to join? What kind of community would ever have that kind of restriction?

peakbagger said:

The 4 k committees history was "fighting the man from within". When the 4k committee started AMC still required that new members be sponsored by existing members (arguably a vestige of the clubs past history of not allowing "people of color into the organization"), when someone filled out the 4k application there was a question if the person applying was a member, if they checked the box, the 4 K commitee members supplied a recomendation to join with the certificate. This was recounted by one of the original 4K member in the 100th anniversity WMG guide book that came out a few years back. They used to keep their funds seperate from AMC funds and usually would make a donation to a trail project somewhere. I usually sent them some extra bucks with my applications.

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Yeah. It sucks when you have to be sponsored. Wait. That happens here.

When did they keep their funds seperate? And how? Woud like to know.

I'm a bit biased, having worked for the AMC, but I don't recall any instances where people "of color" were denied acceptance. You might argue they (AMC) didn't do much outreach in the early years, but programs like YOP (Youth Opportunites Program) have been addressing those conccerns for over 30 years.

Just MHO, but in some instances, people just want info. To assume their intentions or to put your set of "values" on them, b/c it's part of your "fun"...can to many come across as elitist. Again, just MO.

stu said:

I enjoy doing the research and planning. I don’t want it to be easy! That’s why I have declined offers to hike these from people on here. I want the challenge of finding my up there with a minimum amount of help.

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I don't want it to be easier than it should be, but I don't want it to be any harder either.

I have to drive 8 hours to get to the trail head. I'd rather not waste time (and time is $$$) trying to find it. As far as the hike, I don't need someone to hold my hand when I hike, but again, I'd rather do the most straightforward hike, so I can get them all done as efficiently as possible.

Just go up until there is no more up and return the way you came. **

** - NEHH 88/100

Jaytrek57 said:

...I'm a bit biased, having worked for the AMC, but I don't recall any instances where people "of color" were denied acceptance.

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My hunch is that you're a bit younger than I. In any case - as a young kid growing up in a small town in VT I remember my mother driving us over to Berlin, NH to show my brother, sister and I the ski jump where she used to watch my father compete. The two of them had moved from the Boston area in the 30's to VT so they could ski at Stowe, Woodstock, and Tucks. On the way home we stopped at Pinkham, and I read the various posters and pamphlets about the AMC. After we got home, I wrote a letter to the AMC in Boston, asking if I could join, only to learn that in order to join I'd need to be sponsored. Of course, where is a kid in a very small town in Vermont during the late 50's going to find a sponsor? That elitist policy left such a strong impression on me I didn't even bother to inquire again until I was well into my forties.

I had no idea why the AMC had such a policy, and this thread is the first I've heard that it was to keep "people of color" out. And frankly, why they were exclusionary is of no real concern to me at this point. But, I can assure you that there are many members of this board old enough to have been impacted by that policy. It was real. It existed.

stu said:

I don’t want it to be easy! That’s why I have declined offers to hike these from people on here. I want the challenge of finding my up there with a minimum amount of help.

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Having hiked a few of the 100 highest with some very experienced hikers from here over the years didn't make it easy, just a lot more fun.

MichaelJ said:

What? You needed a recommendation to join? What kind of community would ever have that kind of restriction?

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An exclusive club, which the AMC used to be

When I joined in 1968, you needed both 2 signatures and letters from them which my mother acquired from canoeing friends. If 10 members objected, Council could vote not to accept them. There is an old story that more than 10 people objected to William Loeb, but enough of them withdrew their objections that he was approved after the writers were tipped off that Loeb might be kinder to the AMC if he was a member.

This was watered down to signatures but not letters, which became more meaningless after Pinkham & Joy St staff who were members would sign for anyone.

Kevin Rooney said:

I had no idea why the AMC had such a policy, and this thread is the first I've heard that it was to keep "people of color" out. And frankly, why they were exclusionary is of no real concern to me at this point. But, I can assure you that there are many members of this board old enough to have been impacted by that policy. It was real. It existed.

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I don't think it had anything to do with "people of color" as there were very few in Boston in the '50s, it had more to do with class. There is still a lot of resentment about the AMC from blue-collar types.

One guy who was general foreman at a major defense contractor (the sort of job that only 1 in 1000 ever gets) was refused a signature by an engineer in his company as not being the sort of person who should belong. He eventually made it to the Trails Committee of the main club only to continue to be snubbed at leadership meetings by people who thought that any committee that involved physical work was inferior to long-range planning, fund-raising, etc.

RoySwkr said:

An exclusive club, which the AMC used to be

When I joined in 1968, you needed both 2 signatures and letters from them....

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I remember those days. I can't remember who signed for me with letters, but I recall signing for a motorcycling friend who was (like me at that time) in the New England Trail Rider Association. NETRA had a goal of setting up a "Six State Trail System" for street-legal yet off-road motorcycles.

At the time I felt like a rebel for recommending my friend, and a few years later dropped my AMC membership for a while after feeling the two organizations were really at odds with one-another. Today I dearly love traveling miles by foot, but in those days (the 70s) I loved exploring old ways, the distances of which only motorized travel could provide me. We'd get out topo maps and string together a route of 100 miles or so made up of as many abandoned rights of ways (trails) as possible. I still have the machette I carried across my handlebars to wack back brush, if necessary. Loved my 175 cc Yamaha, 250cc Bultaco Alpina and Ossa Pioneer. Imagine...