On a freezing night in early May, a search and rescue crew set off into a squall on a high-stakes mission: a 63-year-old man had vanished somewhere near Franconia Ridge. He’d been missing for three...
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Obtaining an accurate measurement of a mountain’s elevation has become something of an obsession among hikers. Whether you’re tagging New Hampshire’s 48 peaks above 4,000 feet, the 46 4,000-footers in New York’s Adirondacks, or each…
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Terri Werning’s biggest fear while hiking isn’t elevation, bears, or losing the trail. It’s men. Werning, 47, who has completed several sections of the Appalachian Trail (AT) over the past four years, says that were…
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If a hiker, skier, or cyclist is seriously injured in New Hampshire, Vermont, or Western Maine, there’s a good chance they’ll be cared for by Dr. Thomas Trimarco. An attending emergency department physician, Trimarco is…
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As J.R. Harris likes to tell it today, the first time he saw grass, he tried to smoke it. He’s joking, of course, but the rib illustrates how shocking an introduction to the backcountry…
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One million animal and plant species are on the verge of extinction, according to a United Nations report released in May, and we humans bear much of the blame. Climate change, overfishing, pollution, and urban…
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If you’re curious about fly fishing, there’s no better place to start than the Northeast. Picture casting into a mountain stream or a quiet, sun-dappled pond—just you, the water, the whoosh of your line through…
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A man stands at the edge of the campfire, illuminated by the orange glow of an ever-growing flame as it licks the rock ring surrounding it. I’m nervous for his safety. He has been drinking…
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From its headwaters in Crawford Notch, N.H., the Saco River flows 130 miles to Oxford County, Maine, and on into the Atlantic Ocean. With gentle water in some places and fast-paced rapids in others, there’s…
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This story was originally published in the Summer/Fall 2019 issue of Appalachia Journal. The fight broke out on a narrow ridge somewhere high above Davenport Gap, and I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit the first…
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