Centennial celebration for North America’s oldest continuously published hiking guide includes new guide, maps, retrospective book, and online companion
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 27, 2007
The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) is celebrating the 100th anniversary of the AMC White Mountain Guide, the oldest continuously published hiking trail guide in North America, with the release of the twenty-eighth edition. More than a half-million copies of the guide known as the “hikers’ bible” have sold since the first edition was published in 1907. The guide’s centennial year will also be recognized with the introduction of the first-ever online companion to the AMC White Mountain Guide, due out this summer, followed by an illustrated historical retrospective available in October.
The AMC White Mountain Guide is the only comprehensive trail guide to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, covering more than 500 trails and including six full-color trail maps. The guide covers virtually every hiking trail in the White Mountain National Forest (WMNF) in New Hampshire and Maine, including the Appalachian Trail, from the New Hampshire – Vermont boundary to just east of the Maine – New Hampshire boundary.
To commemorate the release of the twenty-eighth edition, guide enthusiasts are invited to attend celebratory events at AMC’s Highland Center at Crawford Notch, New Hampshire, on May 9 and at AMC’s headquarters in Boston, Mass., on May 23. Both events start at 7:00 p.m. and will feature book signings and a brief presentation and Q&A with the AMC White Mountain Guide editors, Gene Daniell and Steven Smith, and cartographer Larry Garland. The centennial edition commemorates Gene Daniell’s twenty-fifth anniversary as editor.
“It is an honor to be part of the history and evolution of the AMC White Mountain Guide and to help preserve its tradition of being the most authoritative source of trail information in the White Mountains,” said Gene Daniell, AMC White Mountain Guide editor who co-edits the current version with Steven D. Smith. “I think the guide's credibility comes from walking every trail and talking to as many hikers and AMC and Forest Service staff as Steve and I possibly can. We also have been fortunate to work with AMC’s cartographer, Larry Garland, on bringing our maps into the digital age with a high degree of accuracy.”
To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the AMC White Mountain Guide, AMC will release the following in 2007:
- The twenty-eighth edition of the AMC White Mountain Guide, available now nationwide through booksellers and outdoor retailers, includes the most current trail descriptions for all trails in the White Mountains, recommended hikes, and notes on geography, safety and stewardship. Each guide includes six new, digitally rendered, full-color, pull-out, topographical maps, which include trail segment mileage for the first time. A set of waterproof Tyvek® maps also is available.
- A first-ever online companion to the AMC White Mountain Guide will be available this summer. This online guide will allow web users to interact with AMC White Mountain Guide maps, explore trail information, search for trails and natural features, and interactively plan trip itineraries using both map and guidebook trail descriptions. An online community area will enable hiking enthusiasts to share information about their latest trips, get current trail and road information, or volunteer for trail projects.
- An illustrated history of the guide, called White Mountain Guide: A Centennial Retrospective, will be available in October. The retrospective will include profiles of people instrumental to the creation of the guide, information on the evolution of the guide, a history of guide mapmaking, and many archival images never before published.
Despite the use of modern mapping, design, and printing technology, many traditional practices continue. Editors Gene Daniell and Steve Smith continue to hike many miles of trails for each edition, noting changes in trailhead and parking locations, trail conditions, land ownership boundaries, and forest regulations. The comments and feedback from hundreds of readers continue to play an important role in keeping the guide as accurate as possible.
Demand for even the earliest editions of the guide reflects the enduring popularity of the White Mountains for generations of “trampers,” as the guide long referred to hikers. Expansion of the railroads and opening of grand resort hotels in northern New Hampshire spurred visitation to the Whites in the nineteenth century, with the building of bridle trails and footpaths prompting increased exploration of the Presidential and Franconia Ranges. Later, growth in automobile travel and the construction of roads such as the Kancamagus Highway fueled tourism. Today, the White Mountain National Forest lies within a day’s drive of one-quarter of the population of the United States, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
“For hikers in the Northeast, the AMC White Mountain Guide is like the Bible—we read it religiously when scouting trips and trust it completely for useful trail information,” said Jonathan Dorn, Executive Editor, Backpacker magazine. “This book belongs on every backpacker’s bookshelf.”
White Mountain National Forest Supervisor Tom Wagner acknowledged the release of the new guide as well. “I want to congratulate the Appalachian Mountain Club as they celebrate the release of the 100th anniversary edition of the AMC White Mountain Guide,” said Wagner. “Since the creation of the White Mountain National Forest, visitors have come to rely on the guide for accurate trail and safety information. We're looking forward to continuing our partnership and ensuring visitors have the tools necessary for them to have a safe, enjoyable experience.”
For more information about the AMC White Mountain Guide centennial, including the celebratory events, visit www.outdoors.org/wmgcentennial.
The AMC White Mountain Guide, AMC White Mountain Guide Map Kit, and White Mountain Guide: A Centennial Retrospective are published by AMC Books and distributed nationally through The Globe Pequot Press. AMC Books are available through booksellers and outdoor retailers nationwide, or directly through AMC at www.outdoors.org/amcstore/index.cfm or (800) 262-4455.
Founded in 1876, the Appalachian Mountain Club is the oldest conservation and recreation organization in the nation. With 90,000 members in the Northeast and beyond, the nonprofit AMC promotes the protection, enjoyment, and wise use of the mountains, rivers and trails of the Appalachian region. The AMC supports natural resource conservation while encouraging responsible recreation, based on the philosophy that successful, long-term conservation depends upon first-hand enjoyment of the natural environment.
Note to Editors: review copies of the books, historic photographs, and images of early AMC White Mountain Guide covers are available on request.
History of the AMC White Mountain Guide
The first edition of the AMC White Mountain Guide, titled the Guide to Paths and Camps in the White Mountains, covered the camps and paths in only the northern and eastern portions of the White Mountains. Each copy was individually handmade, ran 206 pages, included a single map, and cost $1.00. In comparison, the newly published twenty-eighth edition runs nearly 600 pages, includes six color maps, is distributed nationally, and generates sales in the tens of thousands for each edition.
While many regard the AMC White Mountain Guide as essential to hiking the trails of the White Mountains as water and a compass, past editions reveal that the guide is much more than a changing catalog of trails. The successive editions chronicle the evolution of both the AMC and the WMNF, including AMC’s growing focus on outdoor education and the first WMNF land acquisitions following the passage of the federal Weeks Act of 1911. Guide introductions to new editions point to natural disasters such as the Hurricane of 1938 and the devastating 1954 hurricane season, as well as outdoor recreation trends in skiing and backpacking, construction of new highways, Wilderness and scenic area designations, and the postponement of trail updates due to gasoline and manpower shortages during World War II.
The series of guide introductions throughout the years and notable content changes provide an archive of AMC’s history and evolution of its conservation, recreation, and education mission. Early editions focused almost entirely on the ambitious undertaking of providing, as the first edition noted, “a comprehensive guide book of the White Mountains…covering that section of the mountains in which the need seems to be greatest, it being the only large territory not covered by local guide books.” By the fifth edition, the guide was nearly 300 pages thicker and included a new educational chapter taken from the AMC pamphlet, “Emergencies in the Woods.”
In later editions, the guide also included information on new Wilderness areas designated under the Wilderness Act of 1964 and protection of the Appalachian Trail Corridor through the National Trail System Act of 1968. The twentieth edition, published in 1972, introduced “Carry In/Carry Out” principles and Wilderness guidelines to educate hikers about trail stewardship and limit the negative ecological impacts of increased backcountry use during the 1970s backpacking boom. Today’s AMC White Mountain Guide includes discussions about backcountry etiquette, hypothermia avoidance, weather, protecting the alpine zone, and basic hike preparation through the HikeSafe program.
Also chronicled in the guide is the impact of devastating forest fires, including a 35,000-acre blaze in 1907, and natural disasters such as the Hurricane of 1938 that obliterated trails and resulted in the closure of virtually the entire WMNF the following year due to fire danger. The ninth edition, published in 1934, pointed to the influence of human activity in the WMNF. The introduction attributed “extensive additions and alterations” to the “explosive increase in the popularity of skiing and the intense activity of the Government in the construction of new trails and highways.”
Print version
