I started my first hike of the Appalachian Trail in mid May. Most hikers start in March and April. To be fair I’d only learned about the AT a month prior when I read Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods” and it took me 45 days to gather all the gear and learn enough to feel comfortable starting off on such a tremendous journey. Starting in May is fine if you’re a fast hiker. That’s what we did in 2024. We started late May and finished early September. But in 2016 I wasn’t a fast hiker. I averaged just 10 miles a day.
I’d “flipped up” to Maine in August from Harper’s Ferry and headed southbound because I knew I wouldn’t be able to reach Mt. Katahdin before it closed for the winter. I found a great group of other flip-floppers and southbounders who’d started late and we made our way south at a leisurely pace. I camped at almost every pond along the trail in Maine, some days hiking as little as 4 miles before setting up camp and floating out onto the pristine waters using my inflatable sleeping pad as a raft.
This dalliance with the good life put us way behind schedule and we ended up on-top of Mt. Washington during a snow-storm in late September. Mt. Washington is the deadliest mountain in the continental US with 150 known fatalities, due in large part to the extreme weather and easy accessibility of the summit. Mt. Washington is a perfect example of what happens when private interests are allowed to control and profit off of public lands.
There’s a train that climbs to the summit of the mountain. Completed in 1869 by Sylvester Marsh, “The Cogline” was the world's first mountain-climbing cog railway. The Mount Washington Auto Road, originally a carriage road built in the 1850s and later adapted for automobiles, is also a private toll road. The cog charges $95 per passenger. The toll-road charges $36 per passenger. In the summer the peak will see 5,000 visitors per day, most of them arriving via the train and road. The rocks at the summit of Mt. Washington are stained black from the soot of countless trips that the coal-burning cog train has made up and down the mountain since the 1800s. They’ve recently installed a bio-diesel train but still run the coal train once a day, which burns one ton of coal per trip.
New England was colonized and populated before the laws protecting our public lands were put in place. We hiked the Long Trail in addition to the AT thru-hike last year and every single 4k ft peak in Vermont on the Long Trail, save one had a private ski-resort at the top. Thru-hikers grumble about the “Appalachian Money Club” when they hike through the Whites because this is the only stretch of trail under the control of a private(non-profit) entity, whereas the rest of the 2,200 mile trail is controlled by public entities like USFS, BLM, and DOI.
For example the shelters and camping are free for the 2,200 mile trail except the stretch in the White Mountains controlled by the AMC. Here it costs between $15 and $50 for the camping and shelters. Often there’s simply not enough shelter space or campsites to go around.
It is my opinion that this is by design. This becomes very apparent when you take a look at Appalachian Mountain Club’s business model. They derive most of their revenue($46 million in 2023) from charging exorbitant fees for hikers to stay in their mountain cabins. For example, throughout the White Mountains there are 418 bunk beds available through the various huts; these huts were established by the AMC before protection on public lands were put in place and therefore the AMC holds a unique role where they are allowed to manage, and profit off of public land. There are less than 80 designated campsites through the same stretch along the AT. If you want a bunk at the hut it will cost $170/night. At peak season Lake of the Clouds is bringing in $350,000 per month of revenue. And they pay their hut employees $13.84/hr starting off. These employees have to hike up all of the food and supplies for their guests carrying packs that weigh 90 to 110lbs. In 2023 AMC’s CEO made $338,223.
Naumann Tent site
Inexpensive: Managed by the Appalachian Mountain Club. Five single platforms, two double platforms, composting outhouse, dishwashing area, metal food boxes for bear protection. Located next to the Mizpah Hut. Stream nearby for water.
Valley Way Tent site
Free. Managed by the US Forest Service. First come first serve. Wooden tent platforms with some soil-pads and overflow camping available. Open all year. Compositing toilet and nearby stream for water. https://sectionhiker.com/presidential-traverse-lodging-and-campsite-options/
These are the only campsites available if you want to camp in the presidential traverse around Mt. Washington. If you maxed out the capacity that’s only 14 tents sites. In 2024 we hiked the entire Presidential traverse, 26 miles with about 9,000ft of gain and loss so that we would have guaranteed places to camp. A massive day and I puked shortly after the summit of Washington; we got trail magic up there and I’d drank two cokes and eaten two sandwiches. Not a good idea when you’re trying to maintain a 3 mph pace in the presidential range. Slower hikers, which often means older hikers, are forced to pay for spaces in the huts because they simply can’t make the miles required.
The huts will allow hikers to “work for stay” but it is entirely at the discretion of the crew that’s working and often limited to only two hikers. It’s not uncommon for hikers to be kicked out of the huts into terrible storms. In 2024 I met three Amish brothers. The Schmidt brothers. They were finishing the last leg of the AT which they’d broken up into three big sections. They were incredibly strong and fast hikers and we kept passing each other during the presidential traverse and exchanged stories. It surprised me to learn how well traveled the brothers were. One liked to go deep-sea fishing in Florida and Hawaii, another had backpacked through Europe, and they were all avid outdoorsmen and backpackers.
The brothers wore a matching outfit of blue-jeans with suspenders, flannel shirts, and big straw hats. They each had the iconic “Shenandoah beard” and spoke with a peculiar accent that I’ve never heard before. Their outfits were an odd juxtaposition with their Osprey backpacks and otherwise very typical backpacking gear. They told me how two nights before they’d almost been kicked out of the Galehead hut during a severe thunderstorm. I vividly remember that storm, we’d tried to camp at Liberty Springs campsite but it was completely full by the time we arrived at 5pm. We had to hike up the mountain an additional mile and camped right underneath a “no camping” sign on the only flat piece of ground we could find. The weather was horrible. Cold rain, high winds, and lightning. I had to drag away big branches that the AMC had strewn about the ground in order to discourage camping.
That’s another of the AMC’s dirty tactics. They actively fill in any flat sites where people can “stealth camp”(camp without paying) by covering any campsites in branches and fallen trees. They do this under the guise of “protecting resources.” If they really cared about protecting resources they would build more tent platforms. They don’t do that because if people had more options to camp they wouldn’t pay $170/night for their huts. Anyway the night of that storm the Schmidt brothers were sheltering in Galehead hut and around 5pm the hut crew told them that they had to leave. Galehead hut sits above treeline at 3,800ft. Described by the AMC as “the most remote location in our White Mountains hut system, Galehead Hut offers access to soaring peaks and sublime waterfalls.”
The storm was at its peak when the crew was trying to kick out the three Amish brothers. Thunder and lightning were crashing outside. High winds were driving the rain into the walls and windows of the hut in torrential sheets. And the crew was telling the brothers that they needed to leave the hut now because they’re about to start serving dinner to the paying customers. When the brothers asked them where they were supposed to go, the hut crew told them that they could hike a few miles to get below tree-line and camp. Hike a few miles exposed to the full brunt of the storm above tree line, in driving winds, cold rain, and lightning.
Finally, after the brothers stood strong and said they weren’t going to risk their lives in the crazy weather the crew members relented and let them sleep on the floor, but only after they put the brothers to work cleaning out the bathrooms and kitchen. I posted this story on my Instagram and received dozens of similar stories from hikers recounting their own experience of getting kicked out into dangerous weather by hut crew. Think I’m exaggerating the danger? That same night, during that same storm, on August 22nd, 2024, a 72 year old man would die of exposure half a mile below the summit of Mt. Washington. A thru-hiker would discover his body the next day.
Now I’m not being entirely fair to the AMC. They do maintain the trail in this section. They do provide educational opportunities and jobs in the outdoors, and they do a lot of work for conservation. I think their leadership(based out of Boston) is overpaid and out of touch. I think they clearly care more about maximizing revenue and thus they cater to rich patrons from Boston and the surrounding areas, rather than making the outdoors accessible for all. I think a public land agency would do a better job of managing that land.
I’ve hiked that stretch in 2016, 2022, and 2024 now. There are muddy areas in that stretch of trail which have boards to help hikers traverse them. The same boards which were rotted out in 2016 have still not been replaced by 2024. There are now user made trails around those sections which have killed the fragile bushes in the alpine zone because no hiker is going to wade into knee deep mud when they can walk around the puddle. Much of the trail in the White mountains desperately needs to be rerouted because the trail is worn down to bare bedrock. One section just south of Zealand hut is literally a stream whenever it rains because that’s the path of least resistance for the water. Hikers have made their own trails around this treacherous section. Rather than building new, safer trails, the AMC instead throws branches to cover the hiker-created trails to force people to use the unsafe stream “trail.”
The trail in Vermont and Maine, both maintained by volunteers, are in dramatically better condition than the trail in New Hampshire maintained by the AMC. Ask any thru-hiker. This is simply the truth. The rest of the AT is managed by public land agencies and it’s only in this section managed by the private AMC organization that hikers encounter these myriad problems. This is why I firmly stand against the privatization of public lands. The only people who benefit from privatization are the private individuals who own the land, the public inevitably pay a higher price for worse service.
The average nonprofit CEO compensation is $152,119, according to the Economic Research Institute. You would think that the CEO of an outdoors oriented non-profit wouldn’t make more than twice the national average, yet she does. $338,223. AMC’s CEO makes .73% of AMC’s entire revenue. To put this into comparison, the CEO of The New York And Presbyterian Hospital was paid $9.3 million in 2023, one of the highest paid nonprofit CEOs in the country. Yet that was only .09% of their revenue of 10.3 billion. So when you account for the relative sizes of the two non-profits the AMC CEO is paid eight times more than her counterpart if we equalized their revenue. The executive compensation is simply way out of line with other outdoor nonprofits. For example the CEO of the Montana Conservation Corps made $146,715 in 2023. Conservation Legacy, with a comparable revenue of $48.5 billion paid their CEO $180,030 in 2023.
Appalachian Money Club. The name is well deserved.
In 2016 we sheltered in “The Dungeon” at Lake of the Clouds hut. The dungeon is an emergency shelter built below the main hut. It’s a tiny room about 10’ by 10’ that has a stack of old wooden triple bunks. The walls are bare stone. It is meant to be an emergency shelter for hikers caught in the unpredictable weather on-top of Mt. Washington. There was a winter storm forecast and rather than risk getting caught out in it we chose to instead stay at the dungeon.
When we stayed there in 2016 it was free. Now the AMC charges you $10 per person for the privilege of escaping death. We ended up squeezing nine people into the tiny room. Six in the triple-stacked bunks and three on the floor. Bear, standing at an astounding 7’1” and weighing over 300lbs was one of the hikers on the floor.
Footage from Mt. Washington and The Dungeon in this short 1 min video:
I’m still inspired by Bear’s story. He started the trail weighing over 400lbs and it took him two days to hike the eight mile approach trail. He said he’d pick a tree, hike to it, then take a break. That was how he managed for the first weeks of the trail before he lost weight and got in better shape. By the time I met him he’d lost almost 100lbs. He said what drove him was the fact that he “wanted to be the kind of man who could finish such a challenge” and wanted to become an Army officer after the trail. I don’t think he ever became an Army officer but he did go on to become a counselor and social worker. Before starting the trail he’d been working in Chicago as a tow-truck driver and he was so intent on finishing the AT that he stopped making payments on his truck. He couldn’t afford to both hike and make his truck payments. His truck at home was repossessed when he was hiking through Vermont. Bear would go on to finish the trail and it took him almost nine months. In the end he lost 150lbs.
The night in The Dungeon was memorable and a lot of fun. I had a big bag of peanut M&Ms and we made a game of trying to throw the M&M’s into each other’s mouths. We stayed up late sharing ghost stories while the wind howled outside. So we benefited from the fact that Lake of the Clouds hut existed. It’s not all black and white. I’m sure the accessibility of the summit at Mt. Washington has allowed many more people to experience the incredible beauty of the mountain range, people who otherwise wouldn’t have the physical capacity to hike to the top. By this same token however the ease of accessibility has led to dozens of deaths of people who were unprepared for the conditions at the top of Washington.
I think overall public lands need to remain in public hands and be managed by public land agencies. I love thru-hiking because of the equality inherent in the wilderness. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, you still have to carry your own pack. Campsites and shelters are first come first serve. Money doesn’t buy you any extra privileges along the AT. Except in the White Mountains that are controlled by the AMC. Here, money does buy you extra privileges. Money buys you places to sleep where poor hikers have to continue on or beg for the opportunity to clean toilets in exchange for sleeping on the floor. Having the money to pay $170 for a bunk means you won’t be kicked out into a dangerous storm.
I don’t like that. I don’t want the outdoors to become any more of a pay to play system than it is. Even now the vast majority of thru-hikers are white(90% according to halfwayanywhere.com surveys). Because it takes money and resources to buy gear and take six months off of work. Let’s not make it anymore expensive or inaccessible by privatizing public land.
US Marshall’s Hold Hikers at Gunpoint
I’m reminded of Colin “Zen” Gooder. He ran Gooder Grove in Franklin, NC. I first met him in 2016 and would spend three nights at his hostel that year. Zen had just started it up after his mother had passed and left him her house the year before. He’d already filled the tree in his front-yard with the discarded shoes of hikers by the time I arrived in late May.
