Category: Features
When the largest wave of Appalachian Trail (A.T.) thru-hikers rolls into downtown Hanover, N.H, in early July, their agenda will look something like this: shower; wash clothes; eat something besides dried food and energy bars; and, if the budget allows, sleep in a warm, dry bed. Most years, hikers are able to find what […]
Joe Cruz pedals into the unknown. His mud-caked shoes slosh with river crossing ice melt as he spins up loose scree toward the Tian Shan range in Kyrgyzstan. The Mountains of Heaven lance the clouds at a peak of 24,406 feet and bound the country from neighboring Kazakhstan and China. Cruz is cycling 600 […]
Note: “Redlining” also refers to the discriminatory practice of denying services, such as bank loans, to residents of a certain area based on their race or ethnicity. For this reason, this story will use the term “tracing” to describe the White Mountain hiking tradition. Two months into her attempt to hike 1,420 miles of […]
From virtually the moment the Appalachian Mountain Club formed in 1876, members were trying to make maps of the White Mountains. “Being unable to find a reliable map of the White Mountains, I made up my mind to try and make one for myself,” wrote AMC Recording Secretary John B. Henck in the April […]
AMC is committed to increasing access to and engagement with the outdoors for all people. That requires grappling with the hard truth that the outdoors has often not been a safe space for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC)—a history that has deeply affected the relationship between these communities and the land today. Many predominately white outdoors and conservation organizations, […]
The AMC Photo Contest spotlights the different ways we experience the outdoors and the views we take in along the way. For all of us, that view changed over the past year. We announced the winners of last year’s contest just weeks before we found ourselves locked down and deeply uncertain about what the coming […]
This story was originally published in the Winter/Spring 2021 issue of Appalachia Journal. My first impulse was to flee to the mountains. “The Appalachian Trail, here I come!” The Quarantine My first impulse was to flee to the mountains. “The Appalachian Trail, here I come!” That compulsion was quickly dashed to pieces. The AT was […]
This story was originally published in the Winter/Spring 2021 issue of Appalachia Journal. In a small patch of crumbly dirt and mulch, near the weather-worn trellis where the hydrangea had begun to bloom, my 5-year-old daughter, Uma, plucked a beetle off the wood and held it up to the sun. “Daddy, look Daddy. Isn’t she […]
It was too risky to organize in communities, our boss said in a briefing she gave from her home in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was March 13. We were at the office. “I’m laying you all off,” she continued. From the sound of her voice, it wasn’t a message she wanted […]
This story was originally published in the Winter/Spring 2017 issue of Appalachia Journal. Like most other climbers, I took risks and could have gotten into trouble I have been fortunate in my climbing career. I have never had to be rescued. I might have been. Like most other climbers, I took risks and could have […]
When AMC staff have questions about the club’s storied history, they call Becky Fullerton. Fullerton is AMC’s archivist, a role in which she manages the club’s more than 140 years of historical documents, books, and memorabilia for AMC’s Library & Archives. Fullerton was born in Vermont but grew up in Southern New Hampshire. She received a BA […]
In 1987, I received a phone call from a books editor at the Appalachian Mountain Club. Would I be interested in writing a backcountry skiing guidebook for New England? I was a 27-year-old budding journalist, ski bum, political activist, and climber; I’d never written a book. The invitation seemed incredible: Somebody wanted to pay me […]
This story was originally published in the Summer/Fall 2020 issue of Appalachia Journal. Last night’s rain clinging to the trailside underbrush soaked our thighs as we pushed up the lower part of the trail up Doubletop Mountain, in Maine’s Baxter State Park. The day was clear and bright, and a warming midsummer sun promised to […]
Two pitch pines stood alone in a grassy field. To the west, a wetland opened up into a cranberry bog owned by Pine Island Cranberry Company, one of many bogs dotting the landscape in southern New Jersey’s Pine Barrens region. It was late May. Soon wildflowers would sprout, insects fill the air, and northern […]
I’ve loved embarking on outdoor treks ever since I was 14 years old. What started with me sneaking onto El Toro Marine Base near Irvine, Calif., to run through its adjoining wildlands has evolved into hikes on Pikes Peak, the James Irvine Trail, and my favorite site: Katahdin. The first time I attempted the ascent […]
The following is an excerpt from the 2019 book, THE UNLIKELY THRU HIKER: An Appalachian Trail Journey, by Derick Lugo. Chapter 9: You’re a Mr. Fabulous! It’s just past 9 a.m., and after a restful night’s sleep at Blood Mountain Cabins in Neels Gap, Big Foot, Downhill, Chris, and I head out for an 8.5-mile […]
The outdoors is for all. I have heard this mantra for decades, but truth be told I never related to it. In theory and in an ideal world, the outdoors should be for all. But in many places in the United States, this could not be farther from the truth. I’m a first-generation Filipina […]
I’m standing in the dining room at AMC’s Madison Spring Hut, and even though it’s late August, I can’t get warm. Two friends and I have just returned from Mount Madison’s 5,366-foot summit, where a sturdy gale-force wind battered our sweat-soaked bodies already weary from a climb that covered 3,500 feet of elevation in […]
For more than four decades, Ken Powley has made his living on the Lehigh River. The founder of Whitewater Challengers, a whitewater rafting company in Weatherly, Pa., Powley has guided thousands of visitors over rapids, through a forested gorge and rugged terrain reminiscent of the famed whitewater rivers of the West. For Powley, this water […]
When rescue teams found James Clark on Mount Washington’s Lion Head Trail at 1:15 a.m. on June 14, 2019, the 80-year-old Dublin, Ohio, resident was barely clinging to life. The day before, Clark had set out with his two teenage grandsons on what was supposed to be a day hike to the summit of New […]