Which AMC High Mountain Hut Is Right for You?

You’ve heard about AMC’s High Mountain Huts of the White Mountains: The sweeping mountain views. The hearty communal meals. The lively Croos that run them and wake you up with a song. But did you know each hut has its own…personality?

Nobody knows the huts better than AMC’s Bethany Taylor. She stayed in her first hut when she was six months old and has come back and back over the following three decades to work a variety of seasonal hut jobs until she joined AMC full-time as Huts Manager. To help you find the perfect hut for your adventure, we asked Bethany for a run-down on what makes each AMC High Mountain hut unique and special. Here’s what she had to say.

I’ve always found the huts to be a sort of thin place, where we get a chance to be part of an ideal way of being in the world. A kind of Narnia. We eat communally with strangers, as if we might all be able to get along with those we’ve just met. We sleep in shared bunkrooms, as if everyone has been transported to some special summer camp. We are fully off-grid with solar power and minimal energy needs. We had to journey to get here, following in the footsteps of many before us, and keeping the trail open for whoever comes after us.  

Crucially, no humans from this side of Spare Oom live in Narnia forever—some of the magic comes from the brevity of the visit, that sense of tapping into something storybook and timeless, and the recognition that one’s visit there was a time apart from mainstream normal–yet the memory of being there can guide you long after you’ve had to leave.  

And so, whether you’re returning to an old favorite place or seeking out a new adventure in one of AMC’s eight High Mountain Huts, here is what I find wonderful about each one.  

Lonesome Lake Hut

This was my very first hut, and so it holds a special place for me. My parents hiked me up here as a 6-month-old, with my 3-year-old “big” sister and my 70-year-old grandfather in tow. And then, it was the first hut I worked at when I came on as the Summer Naturalist in 2003. This is a great hut for starting one’s hut adventures. The hike is a robust 1.5 miles out of Lafayette Place—be prepared for a few steep and rocky sections, despite the relatively short length of the trail—but it’s doable, and it feels very gratifying to reach the lake and the hut. The hut has 10 separate bunkrooms in two bunkhouses, so it really can be a wonderful spot for families who are trying to preserve any sort of bedtime routine for their young hikers. The view from Lonesome Lake across to Franconia Ridge is spectacular at all times of day, but especially sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and on clear nights with gorgeous views of the stars and Milky Way. Don’t forget that Lonesome Lake is one of the huts that stays open with a caretaker from Halloween to Memorial Day, so you can come experience the place in all seasons! 

Greenleaf Hut

The Franconia Ridge Loop—I recommend hiking up Falling Waters, across the Franconia Ridge, and down the Old Bridle Path—remains one of the most popular hikes in all New England, with very good reason! While some hikers are annoyed at how many others have fallen in love with these trails and this ridge, I have found too much beauty up there to fault anyone for wanting to hike up and see it for themselves. Something that good deserves to be shared. You might find AMC’s professional trail crew and other groups working on these trails to make it feasible and ecologically sustainable for thousands of hikers to keep coming up each year. Greenleaf Hut sits just a mile below the summit of Mount Lafayette, at the junction of the Old Bridle Path and the Greenleaf Trail—both about 2.8 miles from Rt. 93. It’s another one of my favorite huts–the view from the dining room of Lafayette and the ridgeline is wonderful, and the hut is a bit rare in that it feels roomier and better able to accommodate all 48 guests and the many day hikers who come through looking for bathrooms, lemonade, advice, and a place to sit down for a minute on their Franconia Ridge hike. From all of us in the Search and Rescue world: when you come to Greenleaf or set out on the Franconia Ridge Loop, please check the weather, pack a map, and avoid going down the slippery, appropriately-named Falling Waters Trail until the AMC trail crew renovation is complete! 

Galehead Hut

Galehead is the most remote hut. The “easiest” trail up is the Gale River Trail, which has a notably steep stone staircase known as Jacob’s Ladder. However, Galehead Hut is a deeply lovely space with a porch built for resting weary feet while gazing directly into the Pemigewasset Wilderness. Inside, the hut holds 38 guests comfortably—including several four-high bunkbeds for anyone who didn’t get enough climbing on the hike in—and was rebuilt in 1999-2000 to accommodate guests, staff, and all the storage necessary to run a good hut. Bright and sunny, it can make a great base for folks day-hiking some of the more remote 4,000 footers, and a good spot to break up a multi-day Pemigewasset Traverse. Or, if you’re not into lists and loops…hike up with a good book and enjoy the view and the birdsong—especially Bicknell’s Thrush in early summer—from the porch. (If you are hiking Galehead to Greenleaf or Greenleaf to Galehead, be aware that the trail between those two tends to take longer than most folks anticipate, so pad your timing, prepare your group, and pack extra snacks and water.) 

Zealand Falls Hut

Zealand is a perpetual delight and a great destination for anyone–especially kids–getting into hiking and huts. Most of the 2.8 mile Zealand Trail to the hut is along an old logging railroad track, so it is blessedly level for White Mountain hiking. There is one steep section coming up to the hut, which makes for a triumphant arrival. In summer, the place is full of kids laughing and splashing in the pools of the Zealand River just outside the hut. In fall, there is amazing foliage and leaf peeping (avoid the crowds and come up midweek!), and in the winter, the hut has a caretaker so guests are still welcome to ski or hike in for the night, use the hut kitchen to cook their own food, enjoy the coziness of the woodstove and experience this place in a season when most folks aren’t out and about. Zealand is adjacent to the Pemigewasset Wilderness and given the devastating logging history of the Zealand Valley, it’s a cathartic marvel to come to the hut and see that regeneration and resurgence of the natural world is possible through enthusiastic, collaborative, and—I believe—joyful conservation efforts.  

Mizpah Spring Hut

I cannot be unbiased about this place, so I won’t pretend to be. This was the next hut my parents brought me to when I was two years old, and as luck has it, I have the vaguest memory of being in the hut then. Twenty years later I got to work here, and throughout the early 2000s so did both of my sisters, making it an important piece of common ground between us. But if that doesn’t happen to be your personal history, Mizpah is still at the confluence of so many wonderful aspects of the White Mountains. The typical trail to the hut is 2.7 miles from Highland Center, making it easy to link either end of a hut stay with a hot shower. Once at the hut, there are options to pop up and explore the alpine zone and south end of the Presidential Ridge on Mount Pierce, to head over towards Mount Jackson and see an otherworldly alpine bog, or to take a little jaunt down into the Dry River Wilderness. And, if that doesn’t lace up your boots for you…Mizpah is the only hut with a properly separate room as a library, so grab a book, find a patch of sunshine out by the castellated wall and enjoy! Mizpah holds 60 guests, in a variety of differently-sized bunkrooms, and its unique architecture—which I think looks and feels like a combination of a pirate ship and a horse barn (with all the adventure that both of those invite!)–can withstand winds up to 200 mph. We host trainings for the summer hut Croos at Mizpah, so it has a lot of experience welcoming new folks to the huts.  

Lakes of the Clouds Hut

The flagship! Lakes of the Clouds can sleep 92 guests, has 10 Croo, 1 AMC Research staff, and hosts 4-14 thru-hikers a night in summer. If you are coming to a hut looking for a quiet alpine retreat, this may not be the place for you. If you are coming to a hut because you cannot wait to be surrounded by other people who love the alpine zone, the White Mountain weather, and the sheer unfathomable delight of getting to sleep above treeline, then this hut is definitely for you and your 116 brethren. If we are culturally experiencing a loneliness epidemic, Lakes very well may be the cure. Imagine being in a beautiful place, surrounded by so many others who also value the experience as much as you do, and the crowd can start to feel like the party of old friends you’ve been waiting for rather than the madness you’re trying to leave behind. (It is still possible to find a pocket of quiet by the lakes, or around Mount Monroe.) The sunsets on the clear days are breathtaking. And if you get a starry night… be prepared to be swept off your feet when you see the Milky Way above the alpine zone and nearby peaks.  

Madison Spring Hut

AMC has run a hut on the Madison Spring site since 1888, and despite numerous iterations and rebuilds, there is something particularly old and eternal about Madison. The current hut was opened in 2011 after every bit of the 1940s version—except for the stones—was ripped down and rebuilt between September 2010 and June 2011. Being in a building that is at once old and new adds to the sense of being out of linear time that often comes with a hut stay. And, as there are no easy ways to get to Madison, folks often arrive feeling as if they’ve gone through a time warp. It’s quite something to look out at the view to the north and think about how many people have loved this viewpoint since 1888–and if we take care of this space and our public lands, how many more can still. There are so many trails in the Northern Prezzies that it’s a real dealer’s choice of trails to access Madison—the hut Croo uses the Valley Way Trail for resupplies, which at a robust 3.8 miles is the most direct, and enjoyable as long as you aren’t expecting anything other than a real chance to find your grit and strength. From the hut, you can drop a pack and get up to Mount Madison or any of the Adams Family Quintet of peaks (Mount Adams, Mount John Quincy Adams, Mount Sam Adams, Mount Abigail Adams and the under appreciated Adams 5), or toodle up to Star Lake and appreciate the amazing array of alpine bog life.  

Carter Notch Hut

Between the beautiful panels of stained glass on the door to the main hut is a little sign that reads “Cozy Carter,” and the place lives up to that in style. Carter’s main hut is an old stone building from 1914 with whitewashed walls on the inside, a tiny kitchen where the Croo creates wonderful meals June-September, and a dining room that seats—cozily—40 guests. A small wooden addition off the back houses the staff. Outside and up a flight of stone stairs through the woods, two 8-bedroom bunkhouses and the bathhouse await. Carter Notch is a breathtakingly symmetrical glacial valley with Wildcat and Carter Moriah Ridges rising up from two little lakes near the hut. With the stone hut and the stone mountains surging up so close, Carter feels more part of its environment than maybe any of its siblings. The hut site is at the confluence of the Appalachian Trail, the 19 Mile Brook Trail, and the Wildcat River Trail, and it somehow doesn’t get the same number of summer guests as the other huts. If you read about Lakes of the Clouds and thought not for me, then there is a good chance the cozy quietness of Carter is what you’re looking for. 

Book Your AMC Hut Stay 

Legendary Huts Manager Joe Dodge was famous for cheerfully barking that at the huts, “the latchstring is always out”—meaning that all are welcome and the doors are never locked. Metaphorically that is still true, but on a practical, logistical level 100 years after Joe Dodge’s heyday, I recommend calling the AMC Contact Service Center to make your reservations and ensure that even if the door is open, you have a confirmed bed and meals at each hut you want to visit. The Contact Service Center is also where you can speak with someone about trip planning and trail advice or inquire about the AMC gear libraries at Pinkham and Highland. 

Connect with fellow hikers through guided AMC trips and regional chapters, or organize your own adventure to return to an old favorite spot or to experience the huts for the first time. As Calvin and Hobbes said, “it’s a magical world…let’s go exploring!” 

Let’s! 

Book AMC’s High Mountain Huts