Stealthing the Whites: List?

imported
#1

Does anyone have the list and mileages of the stealth sites through the Whites? Or are they posted online somewhere?

BTW, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Put FREEdom back in the Whites

#2

Do you mean bootleg sites? Previously used, trampled, high impact camping sites with a brown piece of TP at the end of every little path sites? Or invisible and pristine sites that do indeed exist but are elusive and hard to list and to stay that way shouldn’t be listed?

Trails Ain’t Free

#3

Talking about sites on the internet kind of takes away from them being “stealth”. Stealth sites are supposed to be ones that you find, because clearly no one else has used them. Then you leave them like you found them.

And to clarify. The AMC’s sites and huts aren’t there to limit freedom of people. They just attempt to manage the area so that they can isolate the impact and focus it on certain areas. Most thru-hikers start bad mouthing the AMC and GMC when they hit Vermont (I did myself when i hiked), but the truth is many of these organizations looses money, even with the 6-8 dollar fees. They are spreading backcountry education and thats a good thing. No one is getting rich off of it.

Sorry for the lecture. Just want people to know the truth

A-Train

#4

Packrat has maps at his hostel in Glencliff,NH just before you enter the whites.

nopain

#5

It’s the same old story, the more bread you have, the less sh*t you have to eat. Same as it ever was…
It’s not really about making money, as if making a profit would somehow be synonymous the AMC silliness being unacceptable. Read it in the journals here, kids: To thru hikers, the hut system is a kick in the crotch. Or maybe I’m missing something. Maybe it would be a fab idea to regulate the entire AT, with a reservation system, work for stay and eating lefftovers for those of us not rich enough to afford the fees, amenities and special treatments. But those of us who can afford it get all the perks. The AMC system is elitist. And don’t even try to tell me about the educational benefits. Nobody knows the benefits of the backcountry better than thru hikers, but, perversely, thru hikers are the ones who have to take the leavings of the Patagonia-snazzy frou-frou weekend-outing set. “Please mister AMC hut despot, please help me allow my thru hiking dream to come true!”

Punque

#6

punque-get the facts before you post. How would thru-hikers go about educating people? Don’t make them out to be saints. I saw hikers on the AT squatting, camping illegally, breaking rules, not paying fees and bragging about it. Thru-hikers think people owe them everything cuz they’re on some magical journey. The AMC DOESN’T NEED to feed them or provide them with shelter. They certainly don’t benefit from the work-for-stay program. Trust me, they could get people to do the half-asses clean up thru-hikers do for stay. What’s wrong with people who can afford to stay there getting what they pay for? Seems OK to me. Yeah it’s overpriced, but the huts fill every summer and there are plenty of folks who want that experience. If the AMC shelter sites weren’t maintained on a daily basis the backcountry would be a mess, and it would look worse than the smokies, with toilet paper sticking out of the ground and garbage everywhere. Those moldering privies wouldn’t exist and the trails would be a mess.
The fact is, most of the time, the huts crews are great to thru-hikers and bend the rules. There are plenty of times more than 2 thrus have stayed a night and they often let section hikers do work-for-stay as well. They even let hikers sleep in a bunk when there is room. They don’t need to do this, but often they do anyway. Most thru-hikers aren’t very appreciate and just bitch in the registers about the fees. Its amazing how filled the vermont registers get (like peru peak) with folks who think they don’t need to pay the fee because they’re better than that. Now THAT is elitist my friend

A-Train

#7

The AMC huts are out and out eye sores, don’t even get me started on the Mt. Washington monstrosity. Having said that, I can see why they are there, to a degree. They keep the millions of people, and the millions of floaters they produce, all in one spot. For the hiker who wants some peace and quiet, I suggest a fall/winter traverse. For thru hikers, there are options. The RMC (Randolph Mountain Club) have a good hut system, they appear to be less intrusive and are also cheaper. There are alot of side trails traversing both the eastern and western slopes of the range, I’m sure that a 1 mile detour below treeline will boast good stealth oppurtunities. Who wants to rush through the Whites anyhow, it’s probably some of the most scenic hiking on the A.T.

Cheers

Cheers

#8

Yes, I’ve noticed quite a bit of ego/elitism in this forum.
HYOH.
Maybe Marriott or Hilton or Trump could take over the concession contract for the entire trail. Make it a chain of hotel/motels, one every 15 miles. Then, only those who could pay would be able to hike.

The most probable reason the hut crews bend and break the rules is because the rules suck. But of course, it’s the rules that make it all possible, right?

Building codes, like most rules and regulations, were designed to protect the idiot public from itself. Perhaps the time has come, if thru hikers are such an arrogant, irreverent, destructive crowd as you inply them to be, to slap some real rules on the AT hiking crowd. Permits. Strict controls on behavior, reservations required. Big fines for violations, with wackenhut security guards on patrol day and night. That’s a bit extreme but not an impossibility in the future. Live free or die, right? Most thru hikers would likely be glad to pitch in a donation-for-stay. Most thru hikers are decent, honest people who will do the right thing given the chance. But thru hikers are also independent, self-sufficient people who don’t appreciate being held hostage to a system of amenities. And the hut system IS an amenitiy. People pay more money, they get better treatment. Simple. Down with The Man: Appalachian Money Club.

Punque

#9

Before I hiked, I had heard lots of bad-mouthing about the huts and about paying shelter fees once getting to Vermont. I think it’s a shame that thru-hikers feel like they’re special and shouldn’t have to pay. Problem is, they get used to the free stays in shelters having that as the experience for the past 11 states. Don’t want to pay the fees? Don’t stay at the shelters. Or don’t hike the trail. These are things that should be considered into your finances before you begin your hike because, like it or not, they are part of the trail. And, I have to say, I was surprised with my experience at the huts. From the talking I heard before my hike, I thought the AMC was just a money-grubbing organization. But i was impressed with the huts. I loved their focus on outdoor recreation and education and can understand why some people would be interested in staying at one.

Leki-Less

#10

Hiking thru the whites was awesome EXCEPT the huts system. I totally disagree with the way they have them set up. Hiking is something that everyone should be able to enjoy FOR FREE. I don’t even want to hear about the helpfulness of the AMC. They use high school volunteers to do a lot of their trail maintenance (I saw them). The head AMC guy gets something like $250,000 or so a year! They have a skyscraper office on Beacon St in Boston (Yes, their head office is in BOSTON, which is one of the most expensive places to own a business). They make $70 per person PER NIGHT in each of their huts!! A family of 4 for a 3 night hike in the whites would be $840!!! They hold up to 90 people in those huts! The platforms are the same way. They charge per person per night.

To make things even better and to make sure you don’t just camp near their precious huts and platforms, they designate ALL hut and platform areas as “fragile”. Hello!??!?!? You are bringing all the tourists here and it’s FRAGILE???

Another nice thing the AMC does for thru-hikers is turn them away if their hut is full. That’s right. You get to the end of your day in the presidentials and you’re even prepared to pay or work for stay, but they are full. THey say sorry, and kick you on your merry way. Which isn’t so bad except you’re not allowed to camp above treeline and almost ALL of the presidentials are above treeline.

We also figured out that to use the hut system for us would cost around $760 (2 people, 6 days, $70 per person, per night). It didn’t cost that much to walk from Georgia to that point (for comparison).

The AMC dominates that area and if you don’t like their way, then you have to camp “illegally”. My hat’s off to the workers and people who help the environment and preserve the nature, but I scoff at the political money hogs that run the whole thing.

Dave and Miranda

#11

The Trail is free. The entire AT. You don’t have to pay to walk. No one says you need to stay at the sites or the huts. I’ll say it again. People have no problem shelling out the 70 bucks, so whats wrong with that? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have two nickels to rub together and i’m incredibly liberal. Point is, thru-hikers think people owe them something. No one owes them squat. If they wanna turn you away, that’s too bad. Why should they take care of you cause you’re walking a long way? They are nice enough to offer work for stay and give dinner/breakfast/lodging for minimal work.

A-Train

#12

i haven’t been up there yet… but are they doing any actual education to all the tourists that come through on leave no trace? it’s amazing how many people have NO CLUE. and although i have not seen or experienced these huts yet… w/ that amount of people, it’s definitely better to isolate the damage to one area for some type of environmental protection. fees or no fees.

greenie

#13

A-Train and Leki-less get it. If you can’t figure out how to bed down for the night by the time you get to N.H. then your outdoor skills suck. You whiners would never make it if the AT was shelterless. I’ve never spent a dime to sleep in the Whites. I do spend $ on Mt. Washington for a couple of bowls of chili.

wolf

#14

Thru hikers make up about 3% of the total vistors to the backcountry in The Whites. Thru hikers who don’t like the AMC are also a minority within that minority. The usually loud noise anti-amc people make on sites like TF

The arguements against the AMC on this site are usually full of exaggeration, miss information and general inflammitory retoric but completely devoid of new ideas about how to deal with all the visitors to the White Mountain backcountry without hiring caretakers, hut croos and collecting fees. Simply getting rid of the AMC wouldn’t stop the people from coming.

Its hard to trust the arguements of a person who throws out false statements, how ever trivial, as if they are fact. Is it important to your arguement that the AMC has headquarters in a “Skyscraper”? I hope not because 5 Joy Street in Boston is a Brownstone. I just hope people new to this arguement are thinking while they are reading through this thread.

Every bit of the AT requires money to built and maintain. I think its great that most of the AT maintaining clubs can keep up their trail without passing the cost on to the hikers. But don’t forget about that cost and remember the busier the trail the higher the cost per mile. There has to be a point where a volunteer based club can’t deal with all the maintainence with volunteer labor, donated materials and monies from the ATC.

Huts and platforms aren’t “fragile” they’re “hardened” areas meant to handle high use. No camping is aloud within a quarter mile of the hardened site, except on platforms and in shelters and huts to protect the area from sprawl. Just like a new Mall can spur development of the land surrounding the Mall, a Hut or Shelter can spur bootleg camping in the forest around the Hut or Shelter.

Thank you A-Train, your posts tell it right.

Celt

#15

The one thing A-train left out is that the AMC huts draw people to the Whites. If they simply stopped offering food, far fewer of the pig hikers would show up at all. Consider the Carter Range and the Carter Notch Hut, in my opinion far more beautiful than the massive pile of rocks that is the Presidentials. If the huts on the Presidentials were like Carter I believe overuse would lessen. You’d get the good, with less of the bad. It would lower the AMC take however.

Blue Jay

#16

to avoid this topic. But once again, like A-Train, I have to get myself involved here.

First of all Celt thanks for jumping in in the Joy Street correction. I was about to do the same, but when I saw your name, knew you would take care of it. I’ve seen 5 Joy St myself. It’s no skyscraper.

I also have stayed gasp in a hut and PAID for it. horrors My first “backpacking” trip when I was 11 was to Lakes of the Clouds with my folks. It sparked a lifetime of hiking and backpacking and tramping every since. So…was that such a bad thing? The physical record of my trip still exists in the logs of 1971.

I also did a trip in 01 with 9 friends from my outdoor club. None of us is rich by any stretch, but that type of trip allowed us to carry lighter packs and have short hiking days. It makes for a different experience, but neither way is better.

Do the huts bring people to the mountains? They bring people to the huts. All shelter does that. Why is the AT more popular than the PCT? Why do so many people who have never even hiked strike on on the AT every spring and relatively few on the PCT? I daresay it’s the shelter system, it’s comforting to people. Most of us were born in some kind of shelter, we grew up in a shelter and we continue to build ourselves shelter. It’s familiar.

I used a combination to get through the section of the AT that traverses the White Mountains. Was I grateful for the free bed and food on a pissing rainy day @ Zealand? Absolutely. They took in SEVEN of us. They didn’t have to, I was expecting to get turned away

I hike in the Whites several times a month, as do most of my friends. Most of us never use the huts, except to grab a bench or some water. iow, for the vast majority of day hikers, whether there are huts or not in the White Mt NF is a moot point. Have any of you who responded spent time outside your AT hike in NH or ME hiking? I say Maine because we have a small sliver of WMNF in Evans Notch, in fact I’m headed there today.

So last February when I did the classic OBP to Franconia Ridge down Falling Water and saw maybe 50 people that day -they were all there for the food that exists in the huts? Or the overnight to Unknown Pond in the Pilot Range several Novembers ago-that’s why I saw another guy camped there that night? Or the 6 guys my husband and I shared Kinsmen Pond Shelter with after Christmas a few years ago? We’re really missing out then if I was going for the food. The Whites consist of WAY more than the 8 huts open (full service) for 2-3 months along the AT from the Kinsmens to Carter Notch.

This topic would be perfectly laughable in Europe, they have a long history of Alpine hut use in the mountains. I doubt any one there is spending energy defaming the SAC.

Read Not Without Peril by Nick Howe and it will be clear that hiking (and stupid hiking) has been done in the the Mt Washington area long before you all were a twinkle in your great-grand pappy’s eye. It’s not going to go away any time soon, so you might as well learn how to work with or around the system that exists for those few miles.

I get really tired of the generalizations that exist about the section from Franconia Notch to Pinkham. There is so much more out there beyond that trail corridor that most of you don’t even know about yet insist on referring to the “Whites” as some narrow strip of the AT.

Bluebearee

#17

I had to stealth once in the Whites but it was a good ways off the trail. It was hard to pass up some sites but I tried to play by the rules. Some sites above tree line are truly fragile and I respect the nature of thoes areas. I did use some of the AMC huts and for the most part the folks at the huts were civil. One hut croo seemed to go out of there way to make us feel as good as the paying customers. At other huts, the folks put up with us and sort of put up with us unclean hikers. I will admit the AMC folks were a lot nicer to hikers than I expected.
Life is good…Swamp Dawg

Swamp Dawg

#18

Punque…you jackass.

I do believe that www.whiteblaze.net has the stealth sites listed somewhere on their site…we printed them off when I was at Hikers Welcome Hostel in Glencliff. The list on Whiteblaze was the same as the handwritten list that packrat had at his hostel. Also, the stealth sites aren’t so stealthy, as the rangers in the park do know about them. But alas, after talking with several rangers - they’re cool with hikers, if you’re cool with them. Furthermore, the work-for-stays at the AMC huts aren’t bad at all either. Decent food and roof over your head.

Rowboat

#19

Stealthing involves camping out of sight, period. There are so many great spots in the Whites to stealth and/or camp LEGALLY without dealing with the AMC morons. Some great spots I found this year include: Little Haystack… right at the summit there is a small cleared out flat spot prime camping for a tent or tarp. Bring water from Liberty Springs

http://www.trailjournals.com/photos.cfm?id=66103

http://www.trailjournals.com/photos.cfm?id=66102

The second fantastic spot we found was after climbing up South Twin. Go past the AT junction about 200 feet and there is this great spot

http://www.trailjournals.com/photos.cfm?id=66139

Before the do not camp close to the Hut signs near Zealand there are numerous FAT spots to the right of the trail.

I agree with Wolf about shelters and huts. Me, in 5,000 or so miles I only stayed at 5-6 shelters. The best spots are away from them. Eat dinner, socialize and keep on trucking.

NOW with the AMC: I refuse to pay their bull**** costs. If they never built and developed the Whites and bastardized them with building on top of summits then there would not be these problems. Burn the huts to the ground and let people sleep in the woods. The Whites have more toilet paper, idiots on cellphones and garbage then other parts of the trail. The logs thru boggy wet areas are not maintained. People should be mortified that these *******s were allowed to buy a portion of the 100 mile wilderness to put in a 250 per night yuppie hideaway. The folks that work at the Huts are cool… it is the management that I gripe with.

aswah

#20

Thank you for the correction on the location of the AMC headquarters. 5 Joy Street is where the headquarters is located (Which is less than 300 meters from Beacon St). This is still in one of the most expensive places to own a business.

Frankly, I don’t really care if people are willing to pay up the wazoo to stay in a hut. If thru-hikers only make up 3% of the total hikers there, why not give them free pass to stay where they like? If the AMC’s focus isn’t money, then let those few dozens of thru-hikers stay where they like. Get a permit system like in the smokies and Shenandoahs. The whites don’t have that. EVERY time we asked about a place to stay that was not the hut or a platform, ALL AMC people said there was nothing. We didn’t believe them of course and hiked on to find stealth camping.

Contrary to what people here are saying, most thru-hikers (with the exception of the very well off ones we met) that we met complained about the AMC huts. The complaints are so vast that for the last few years they removed the register on top of Mt Washington because it was filled with complaints about the huts (it was returned this past year). That leads me to believe that more than a “few loud people” are complaining about these huts.

Like I said before, the people who work on the trails and the volunteers, my hat’s off to them. They do awesome! They deserve to be paid well, not the people sitting in an office in Boston (which isn’t even in NH!!!).

The information we have we received from former AMC workers and current AMC workers. We talked to the workers on the trail often as well as the hut workers when we stopped for a break.

Why are there no free shelters in the Whites? Why are there no free camping sites? Places that don’t offer any food, water, bathrooms, or a bed. Just plain shelters (lean-tos)?

“Huts and platforms aren’t “fragile” they’re “hardened” areas meant to handle high use.” The sign that come immediately before and immediately after all of the huts and platforms says fragile. But words aren’t the point. There were virtually no other places on the AT in the whites that were “fragile”. We knew we were coming up to a hut when we saw the fragile sign.

The ATC can take care of around 2000 miles with donations, memberships, and volunteers, but the AMC can’t do the same with just NH? I believe the ATC even takes care of more than just the AT, but also the surrounding trails.

Dave and Miranda