The AMC has a club called The Four Thousand Footer Club. This club is composed of hikers who have climbed the highest peaks in the White Mountains. They publish a list of eligible mountains and, upon hiking all of the peaks on that list, hikers can submit an application to join the club.

When I was younger and hiking much, much more than I do now, it was a dream of mine to join this club. Two things have kept me from attaining this dream. The first is the set of family obligations that currently limit my free time. The second is the fact that, in my younger days, I made quite a few repeat trips to peaks I enjoyed while introducing the hobby to newbies. For instance, I’ve climbed up Little Haystack four times, even though it isn’t on the eligible peaks list. The reason for this is that the Falling Waters Trail is a wonderful trail to hike due to the cascades on its lower parts and the fact that it breaks tree line near the summit. While it is steep and a bit of a challenge, newbies who can reach the summit can be proud of themselves and see all that hiking in the Whites can offer.

Now, that I’m hiking a bit more than in previous years, the dream of joining that club has resurfaced. The problem that I have, though, is that the application for admission to this club requires the dates of ascent of these peaks. Unfortunately, the majority of my ascents took place over 15 years ago! The dates upon which I climbed are lost to history. I’ll just have to rehike them some time in the future.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 14th, 2005 at 12:03 pm and is filed under Hikery. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.