Each your our AMC Archivist, Becky Fullerton, compiles and shares AMC anniversaries of note. Enjoy!
10 Years Ago:
September 21, 2014: Fifty AMC volunteers from at least four chapters take part in the People’s Climate March (PCM) in New York City, a large-scale activist event orchestrated by the People’s Climate Movement to advocate global action against climate change.
December 17, 2014: AMC and the Highlands Coalition successfully challenge a $1.5 billion casino project and highway interchange near New York’s Sterling Forest.
25 Years Ago:
1999: Galehead Hut is completely rebuilt with the demolition of the original 1932 structure. Due to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990, the new construction must be built to comply with ADA standards.
1999: AMC begins providing Leave No Trace education programs, designed by the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics in Boulder, Colorado.
1999: AMC opens its first Mid-Atlantic Regional Office in Titusville, New Jersey, which helps launch a more active collaboration between the DV Chapter and AMC staff.
1999: The 30-year special use permits to operate the AMC White Mountain Huts is renewed by the U.S. Forest Service.
50 Years Ago:
December 21, 1974: AMC’s Carter Notch Hut opens for winter for the first time, allowing for self-service guest stays through the winter months.
1974: AMC’s Land Use Planning Committee compiles a report defining the club’s interests in wilderness preservation in the White Mountains and presents their findings to Congress. This helps with the passage of the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act the following year.
August 19, 1974: AMC goes to court over the expansion of I-93 through Franconia Notch, New Hampshire for the first time to seek and be granted a temporary injunction against the project.
75 Years Ago:
1949: The Parapet Trail, from the junction of the Osgood and Daniel Webster-Scout Trail around the south side of Mount Madison, N.H., to Star Lake, is built by AMC’s Trail Crew.
1949: The Connecticut Chapter assumes responsibility for maintaining half of the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut (in 1979 it began maintaining the entirety of the trail in the state).
100 Years Ago:
1924: The 26.8-mile Mahoosuc Range Trail between Gorham, New Hampshire and Grafton Notch, Maine, is completed after six years of work by trails volunteers and AMC Trail Crew.
1924: The Shoal Pond Trail, Lost Pond Trail, and Bondcliff Trail, all in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, are built.
1924: Eliza Brook Shelter in the Kinsman Range of the White Mountains, N.H., is built, replacing a temporary shelter of scrap wood set up the year before.
1924: Zeacliff Pond Shelter is built on the shores of Zeacliff Pond, New Hampshire, just off the Twinway. It is decommissioned and removed in the early 1960s.
June 1924: The Club mourns the loss of AMC Corresponding Member George Leigh Mallory, who disappears on Mount Everest with his climbing partner Andrew Irvine on June 8 or 9, 1924. Mallory’s body would not be found until 1999. Irvine’s remains have yet to be discovered.
125 Years Ago:
1899: Mary W. Eastman and husband Edson C. Eastman give 2.3 acres of land on Three Mile Island in Lake Winnipesaukee, New Hampshire to AMC. They give a second gift of four-plus acres in 1901, and the club eventually purchases the rest of the island. Plans are made to establish a permanent camp there.
1899: An old, collapsing shelter near Hermit Lake in Tuckerman Ravine, N.H. is abandoned, and a new “Hermit Lake Camp” is built nearby.
August 15, 1899: The New York Times reports: “Mount Dawson, a peak of the Selkirks [in the Canadian Rockies] hitherto unscaled, has been ascended by Profs. Charles E. Fay of Tufts College and H.C. Parker of Columbia University. They were accompanied by Hasler and Fouse [sic.], two Swiss guides of this place.” Fay, a founding member of AMC, and Parker represented the club on the expedition. Christian Hasler and Edward Feuz were part the first generation of Swiss guides hired by AMC to accompany its mountaineers in the Canadian Rockies.