Of the many tools Mike Kautz uses to do his job, one of the most helpful is a book written over seven decades ago. As AMC’s Huts Manager, Kautz has the daunting task of ensuring that the club’s string of eight alpine huts in New Hampshire’s White Mountains operates smoothly while offering thousands of annual visitors a level of hospitality that goes beyond a bunk and a couple of hot meals. Certainly, managing reservations, hiring and training staff (known as croo, although nobody seems to know why), and supplying the huts with food and fixings to suit all tastes is a responsibility helped by having sophisticated systems and technologies.

Kautz does rely on a lot that is state-of-the-art. But he still finds himself turning to the Hutman’s Handbook: Season of 1935 by Joe Dodge as a constitution on how staffers should treat one another and guests. “It’s the bible of the huts department,” he says. That Kautz would find so much useful material in such an aged tome is not surprising.

During his 30-plus years as huts manager, from 1928 to 1959, Dodge oversaw the construction of Greenleaf, Galehead, and Zealand Falls huts as well as extensive renovations and improvements at others; his impact was so substantial that the Joe Dodge Lodge and administrative buildings at Pinkham Notch were named in his honor. (Kautz does, however, ignore Dodge’s passages allowing hutmen to carry revolvers and those that prohibit women from working as crewmembers.)

The reality is that huts managers from different eras share essentially the same mission: to provide as wide a spectrum of people as possible the opportunity to visit some of the most spectacular natural areas in the White Mountains. Located a day’s hike from one another along the Appalachian Trail, the huts have enabled generations to spend more time in the backcountry without lugging a lot of weighty gear. Along the way, they hopefully develop an appreciation for the importance of conservation. For 118 years, AMC’s huts, which for many are the face of the club, have been offering guests the chance to enjoy some of the Northeast’s most spectacular natural areas and a place to share what they’ve seen and done.

“I love the hut experience because it’s a sharing experience,” says Chris Thayer, AMC’s White Mountain Facilities Director and a former hut crewmember. “People come together, whether it’s staff, volunteers, or guests, and share the wildlife they saw or the fact that they finished their 4,000-footer list. That hasn’t changed and hopefully never will.”

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