With the release of the White Mountain Guide's 28th edition, a hiking institution turns 100.

"You’ve heard the book referred to as the hiker’s bible,” says Larry Garland. “I think it’s a well-deserved moniker.” He should know. As AMC’s cartographer, Garland’s responsible for making and ensuring the accuracy of the maps that accompany the White Mountain Guide, a task that has him collecting and assembling tens of thousands of data points. “There’s a lot of pressure to get it right.” If longevity is any indication, Garland and the many editors, writers, and mapmakers who preceded him have succeeded. AMC’s flagship guidebook celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, making it the oldest continuously published trail guide in North America. Released this month, the guide’s 28th edition plots nearly 1,500 miles of trails. Every step of which, by the way, Garland has personally walked.

White Mountain Guide Co-Editor Steven D. Smith, photographed in Lincoln, N.H., January 2007.

The White Mountain Guide has long been an indispensable resource and trail companion for people to explore the White Mountain National Forest. But the book was hardly unique when it first appeared in 1907 under the cumbersome title, Guide to the Paths and Camps in the White Mountains. Prior to its publication visitors to the area used such guidebooks as Thomas Star King’s The White Hills and Samuel Eastman’s White Mountain Guide Book. Both devoted a lot more space to describing bucolic views than explaining where paths went. “There weren’t many trails,” says Eugene Daniell, co-editor, along with Steven D. Smith, of the current edition. “[So] they were heavy on tourist information and descriptions of views because there wasn’t a great deal of hiking to be done.”

The White Mountain Guide’s greater emphasis on trail descriptions represented a departure from the more florid fare of the day. Early editors also happened to be prodigious trail builders, experience that added to the book’s on-the-ground accuracy. While little new trail construction occurs today (the 28th edition does include the recently completed Grafton Loop Trail on the west side of Grafton Notch), the editors’ work remains as vital as ever. Paths are rerouted and closed, trailheads are moved, and sights and conditions constantly change. “The guidebook can only be a record of how things were at a certain period of time. Things are always changing,” says Smith. “A lot of people look at it from one edition to the next and may not notice major changes, but there are subtle changes, fine tuning. Sometimes views become grown over, someone might have cleared a vista years ago and it’s no longer there.”

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