STUDIO CANOE / 11:35 minute watch This is a short film from Studiocanoe about the processes by which mountains are created and eventually destroyed. It is based upon the work of British geographer L. Dudley Stamp, and was shot in Iceland. Physical geography and geology is an enormous and fascinating subject, and this film only touches upon the surface of the discipline. For those who wish to further advance their knowledge in this field, additional reading and research is recommended. The film was created as part of The Weight of Mountains filmmaker residency program. For more information ple ..read more

Michael Hilton / 5:30 minute read In the beginning it was an amiable kinship. I enjoyed him, admired him. Even championed him. But then…he pissed me off. He swung at me, I swung back. I doubted him. Outright disrespected him. He insulted and offended me. I loathed him. He mocked me; laughed in my face. Back and forth we went. My blood boiled. And I was only reading his words. My experience was not a unique one. Many readers of Abbey have been held spellbound by his dazzling wit and lyrical tongue, only to be rudely ambushed by a carefully placed haymaker to their psyche. “Cactus Ed”, author of ..read more

Wild Northeast / 2:45 minute read It’s a stressful moment in our lives and the source of solace for many of us is out the front door. While there has been debate and argument over fleeing to the mountains during this time, it seems we are all being asked to find a different kind of relationship to what most brings us comfort. To consider not only a future time to play and conquer (more on that phrase) but perhaps another way to look at these places currently on hold for adventure but still held in our hearts. What if we reconsider our relationship to wilderness? Google anything related to poll ..read more

Blisters, Boots, and the Binds that Tie 100 Years of Trail Work at the Appalachian Mountain Club WORDS: SAM KILBURN A.K.A ARCHIE IMAGES: VIA THE APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CLUB Scrubby, we’ve got another one! The man in front of me, bottom lip bulging with tobacco and coffee in hand, said nothing to me. A simple gesture told me to go upstairs.I turned, said a hasty goodbye to my father who had accompanied me to Pinkham Notch, then made my way up the stairs. A ‘mutants only’ sign at the top of the steps gave me a second of pause, then I pushed open the door and entered Hutton Lodge. Scrubby, I soon ..read more

Could the record for New Hampshire’s burliest trail run—the AMC White Mountain Hut Traverse—have been set in 1963? WORDS: MICHAEL WEJCHERT IMAGES: BRETT WILLIAM & APPALACHIAN MOUNTAIN CLUB At 5:08 am on August 16th, 1963, a twenty-year-old Olympic hopeful named Alex MacPhail laced up a pair of Limmer hiking boots and left Madison hut as the sun crept up on the Northern Presidentials. MacPhail sprinted down towards 302 at a blistering pace. His goal was a Hut Traverse: a 50-mile enchainment of the structures operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club that stretch across the White Mountains ..read more

BY ROBERT W. SERVICE There’s a race of men that don’t fit in,  A race that can’t stay still; So they break the hearts of kith and kin,  And they roam the world at will. They range the field and they rove the flood,  And they climb the mountain’s crest; Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,  And they don’t know how to rest. If they just went straight they might go far;  They are strong and brave and true; But they’re always tired of the things that are,  And they want the strange and new. They say: “Could I find my proper groove,  What a deep mark I would make!” So they chop and ..read more

Risks, Decisions and the Last Climb of Kate Matrosova Book BY: TY GAGNE “On Feb. 15, 2015, Kate Matrosova, an avid mountaineering, set off before sunrise for a traverse of the Northern Presidential Range in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Late the following day, rescuers carried her frozen body out of the mountains amid some of the worst weather ever recorded on these deceptively rugged slopes.” In this episode we caught up with Author, Risk Manager and Volunteer Search and Rescue team member, Ty Gagne to discuss risk and decision making.   Listen Now http://www.wildnortheast.com/wp-content ..read more

Fishing, fine-dining and conservation converge in the Piscataqua Estuary WORDS: KYLE SCHAEFER PHOTOS: JOE KLEMENTOVICH One of my favorite ways to travel is to quietly pole my flat bottom skiff across the shallow mud and sand flats of New Hampshire and Maine, sight fishing for striped bass. In our increasingly fast-paced world, moving slowly and uncovering the subtle details of Mother Nature’s inner workings has a deep and rare value to me. As a fly fishing guide in Kittery, Maine, these observations are my hard earned intellectual property that help to make a good day great. Today photographer ..read more

A portrait of New England mountaineer & climbing historian Ed Webster WORDS: BRETT WILLIAM + MICHAEL HILTON IMAGES: BRETT WILLIAM + ED WEBSTER In what he later called, “the most fateful decision of my life,” Ed Webster saw the rising sun casting stunning alpenglow on the Lhotse face and took out his camera. At 5:30 am, 27,000’ high on Mt. Everest’s S.E. Ridge, well above the South Col, he removed his overmitts, took out his Nikon FM2, and made the proper adjustments, exposing eight frames of film. The temperature was -35 Fahrenheit, the metal-body camera, a block of dry ice. He assumed his ..read more

From African alpine jungles to frozen waterfalls in New England, climber Majka Burhardt is comfortable on any vertical terrain. Now she’s using her skills to protect an ecosystem and the people who depend on it. WORDS: IAN FERGUSON COVER PHOTOS: Celin Serbo, GABE ROGEL & ANNE SKIDMORE Majka Burhardt was in her element leading an expedition on Mount Namuli in Mozambique. As a professional guide, she has brought people up mountains all around the world, but this time her clients were scientists documenting unexplored habitats on the upper reaches of a mountain in sub-Saharan Africa. Together ..read more