[at-l] Peak bagging in the Whites

[Arthur Gaudet]

An AMC friend sent notice of a Boston Globe article published today, about some
legendary peak baggers in the Whites. 

See:
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2008/12/06/grid_hikers_take_on_48_40000
_ft_mountains/ for a picture on South Twin (near the AT, 1 mile from Galehead
Hut); a 40 sec. Video called "True Grid" and a 10-picture slide show. Picture #9
is a nice shot of a gray jay taken at Galehead.

Another cool web thingy is the interactive map at
http://www.boston.com/interactive/graphics/2008/20081205_climb/ that allows you
to "fly" through the Whites looking at the peaks. Since the AT follows the major
ridgelines in the Whites you can peck out the AT by following the pulsing orange
balls that indicate the 4000-footer list. 

I've included the text of the article to save those who, like me, find it
frustrating to be forced to click on a link just to see what people are talking
about. I figure as long as I'm not including images I'm not using up bandwidth
in an egregious manner <g>. --RockDancer (who's got over 450 peaks done, but
nothing compared with the master Ed Hawkins at 3080 peaks!)

Up with people
By Tom Haines, Globe Staff | December 6, 2008
The term 'grid' is spare and scientific, speaking neither to wonders of nature
nor the pulse of personal endeavor.
For a small but growing group of relentless New England hikers, though, the grid
- catalogued on a spreadsheet 48 rows deep, 12 columns wide - documents a
particular pursuit of both mountains and motivation.
Forty-eight is the number of 4,000-foot peaks in New Hampshire's White
Mountains; 12 the number of months in a year. Hike each 4,000-foot peak in each
month of the calendar, and you summit the grid's magic number: 576.
The feat apparently was first accomplished two decades ago by a longtime bagger
of peaks. Since then, seven others have joined him, including Ed Hawkins,
thought to be the second to finish, in 2002, and now at work on his third and
fourth grids.
The attempt itself can seem both obsessive and sublime. It sets a ridiculously
distant goal for those not satisfied with other traditional measures of the
mountains, such as a single loop of the 48 4,000-footers, or summiting all 67 of
New England's 4,000-footers, or climbing New England's highest 100 peaks. Yet
the grid also delivers those who pursue it where they've always wanted to be:
enjoying the White Mountain heights, where boreal chickadees whine in the
fir-spruce forest, or a flock of winter finches rides the wind over a ridge.
Hawkins explains it like this: "Doing the grid gets you back to what you
originally started doing. Just to be outdoors."
It's hard to know how many people are now attempting this significant expansion
of the single-layer goal of summiting New Hampshire's 4,000-foot peaks one time,
no matter the season.
Hawkins maintains an e-mail list on which he announces many of his upcoming
hikes to more than 200 people. During one week in September, for example,
Hawkins hiked the Kinsmans on Wednesday, Mounts Tom, Field, and Willey on
Thursday, and Mount Moosilauke on Saturday morning, for which he had to hurry to
beat foul weather.
Hawkins is 62. He types his e-mails in capital letters:
"HI TO ALL
THIS COMING WEDNESDAY, NOV 5, WE WILL BE HIKING THE TWINS AND GALEHEAD.
THE PLAN IS TO MEET AT THE GALE RIVER TRAIL TRAILHEAD PARKING LOT, OFF THE GALE
RIVER LOOP ROAD, AT 7:00 A.M. . . .
ALL HANDS SHOULD BRING A MINIMUM OF 2 QUARTS OF H20 FOR THIS 12.0 MILE TREK. . .
."
Getting started
Seven hikers idle in the cool of daybreak, wearing boots and gators that cover
their lower legs, packs pulled snug on their backs, with ice spikes and hiking
poles dangling. Not 50 feet up the wet-leafed track, Al Aldrich, 62, says of the
grid's 576 climbs, "You don't set out to do them all."
The decision to hike the grid, in other words, happens in increments, maybe
after climbing all of the 4,000-footers, or doing them all in winter. What more?
Aldrich, of Jackson, N.H., played basketball during high school in Swampscott.
Then he played tennis during one decade and ran races the next. Before the hike
toward North Twin peak, and South Twin and Galehead beyond, Aldrich was "78
percent" done with the grid. He has also stood on the highest point in 40 of the
50 states.
"If I had started earlier I'd be excited to go up to Denali [in Alaska], but not
now," Aldrich says. "So we'll end up with 49 states."
Shafts of soft sunlight sift down the narrow valley. The group hops rocks across
the Little River, and the trail gets steep.
"After you've gone through the humidity, flies, and bugs. And you think, 'People
do this in winter?' " says Guy Jubinville, 56. "It's almost more fun."
Jubinville, who lives in Twin Mountain and has worked for a decade as custodian
at the Appalachian Mountain Club's Highland Center, in Crawford Notch, completed
the grid in October, the culmination of 14 years of hiking. He recalls a
particular trip to the summit of Mount Jefferson in December 1993. It was 25
degrees below zero.
"An epic, we call it," Jubinville says. "And we survived it. We made sure
everybody was good. . . . We had people shivering. And we had to move."
Looking back
In the early '80s Gene Daniell, 61, realized that he'd climbed all 48 in winter,
twice, and heard of a man who had done all 46 in the Adirondacks during each
month of the year. So he decided to do the same in the Whites, and succeeded in
1989. Daniell is not affiliated with the current grid effort, which includes a
website maintained at 48x12.com <http://48x12.com/> . While he does not mind
others trying to summit the 48 peaks in each month of the year, he finds the
term grid "ugly almost to the point of being horrifying."
In an e-mail, Daniell, who because of foot problems hasn't climbed in a decade,
explained the origins of his peak pioneering:
"I had undertaken the project with the idea that not only would it help satisfy
the obsessive-compulsive urges that all of us whom Guy Waterman called 'ultimate
peakbaggers' harbor, it also had a certain delightful whimsicality to it - doing
something that others would consider crazy and enjoying it. But mostly I looked
forward to seeing my beloved mountains in the full panoply of beauty they assume
as the seasons pass around. I have always said that for me and most other
peakbaggers I know, the List is an itinerary rather than a goal - on completing
a list most of us experience a certain bittersweet exultation, knowing that a
beloved old friend will never be with us in the same way again."
The point of it all
It is a mild day on South Twin summit, 4,902 feet above sea level. To the east,
views in gray and green open toward the peaks of the Presidential Range,
including Washington, Jefferson, and Adams.
"This is a presidential day," Hawkins says. "There're probably a lot of people
up in the pressies."
Aldrich, sitting on a rock, says, "Yeah, but they don't 'need.' We 'need' these
peaks."
Why hike Adams on a banner November day if you've already done it in November,
and not South Twin?
Hawkins, retired after a career at Coca-Cola, hiked his first official
4,000-foot peak - Mount Moosilauke - in May 1993, at age 47. He has also climbed
the 67 4,000-footers in New England 16 times, including each of the past 12
years. He has done the loop of 48 4,000-footers in New Hampshire 52 times. He
has climbed a 4,000-foot peak, as of mid-November, 3,080 times.
Hawkins sometimes hikes in a pair of 14-year-old shorts, patches of fleece sewn
by his wife over holes in the crotch, and on the seat. He drinks Diet Coke on
some breaks, and passes out Butterfingers and M&Ms on others. Atop each summit
he extends a hand and looks each hiker in the eye as an offer of hearty
congratulations.
After South Twin and Galehead, the hike ends near dusk. Hawkins has been singing
the praises of bottled beer - more carbonation, fresher taste - and offers the
hikers a round of Pabst Blue Ribbon longnecks. Talk turns to a hike up Owl's
Head three days later. Weather is iffy, though, and it looks as though the next
day may be a good one.
Will Hawkins really be heading toward another 4,000-footer by sunrise?
He sits on the tailgate and pulls off his boots. With a grin, he says: "I'm
thinking about it."  

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