Thayer also points to the widespread installation of composting toilets as another way the hut system has emphasized conservation. These toilets replace a mixture of traditional flush toilets and septic systems that required barrels of waste to be flown out by helicopter.

This sensitivity to the fragile wilderness environment has not always been the norm. Up until the 1960s, donkeys were used to haul early season supplies to the huts. Not only did early hut guests rely on nearby woods to fuel their stoves and make bunks cozier, crew members often did little to set a good example—largely, of course, because of a lack of awareness about the negative impact they were having. “Having garbage out of sight was about as environmentally sensitive as we got,” recalls Doug Hotchkiss, who worked on the construction crew that built Mizpah Spring Hut in 1964 and later spent time on the crew at Lakes of the Clouds. “People just didn’t think about it.” Well before composting became standard procedure, crewmembers even had a name for the pits where they dumped food waste: a gaboon.

Far from hoping that these changes go unnoticed by guests, both Thayer and Kautz say that crews do whatever they can to draw attention to them and offer tours that explain how different systems operate. Thayer sees it as a welcome opportunity to educate visitors. “When people go home maybe they’ll think about where their water comes from or how their power is generated,” he says.

The educational component of the huts goes beyond simple tours of the facilities. Beginning in the mid-’90s naturalists have been added to the staff of each hut crew, bringing a real depth to what guests can learn about nearby alpine and forest plants and animals. Aside from leading pre- and post-dinner programs, hut naturalists also talk to guests about hands-on ways to get involved in addressing air quality issues and climate change through AMC’s Mountain Watch program.

The Crew Experience

The experience of working at the huts has made lasting impressions on generations of crew, largely because it’s just so much fun. Crew members have a long tradition of pranks on other huts, usually done in the dark of night when all work has been completed and guests are asleep. In the early days, some crews had plenty of time on their hands to plot mischief. “Some huts were busy, like Madison and Lakes, but others you could go days without anyone coming,” recalls Jim Hamilton, who worked at Greenleaf and Zealand huts in the early 1960s.

For years, crews launched raids and counter raids on huts in search of items whose value is not immediately obvious; one was a propeller from an airplane that crashed while purportedly carrying a group of Santas on their way to a mall. Former crewmember Mark Riddell remembers a night when he hiked from Galehead to Lonesome Lake to swipe the prop. As he stealthily sneaked in, he bumped into a friend from Greenleaf on the same mission. “We decided in the spirit of harmony that we would steal it together,” he says. Through some slight deception Riddell ended up with the propeller, though not for long. The Greenleaf crew launched a raid a few weeks later to retrieve the prize. And they didn’t take any chances that they would leave empty-handed, either. “They duct taped me to the floor,” he recalls.

Such fond memories are widespread. Doug Hotchkiss was a student at Bowdoin College in Maine when he came across an article in National Geographic, “The Friendly Huts of the White Mountains,” by Supreme Court Justice William Douglas. Full of photographs and praise, the 1961 story recounts a three-day hike Justice Douglas took with then-Huts Manager George Hamilton and helped spawn such a boom in visitors that it necessitated the construction of Mizpah Spring Hut in 1964 plus renovations to Carter Notch, Lonesome Lake, and Lakes of the Clouds. It also prompted Hotchkiss, who had grown up hiking in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, to later seek out a position on the crew, which he eventually landed. “I thought it would be a neat job,” he says.

Hotchkiss counts his huts experience as among the most formative of his life. A large part of that was due to the fact that he was young when he worked at the huts and the job gave him his first taste of responsibility. Living and working closely with a handful of other hut staffers seems to forge lifelong bonds. “A lot of my best friends are from that era,” says Hotchkiss. “We still stay in touch.”

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