The 48 peaks over 4000' in New Hampshire

We seem to be a country of ‘lists’ and that trend made its way to the hiking community of the northeast as well. The White Mountains of New Hampshire have 48 peaks above 4000’ of elevation as compiled by the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Four Thousand Footer Committee (FTFC), a group formed in 1957 to establish the official criteria and maintain the list of peaks. In addition to the 4000’ of elevation requirement, each official peak must be at least 200’ above the low point of a connecting ridge leading to a higher neighbor. A hiker must climb all the peaks on the official list to request membership in the ‘club’. There are many other lists and clubs associated with the mountains of the northeast: the New England 4000 footers and the Northeast 111 to name two. The Northeast 111 includes the 4000 foot peaks of New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont, as well as the 46 peaks over 4000’ in the Adirondacks and the 2 peaks over 4000’ in the Catskills (there are 115 peaks in this list but they have kept the original name). There are also those clubs that, by the very nature of their lists, will always have just a few select members. There is the 4000 footer grid club, whose members have climbed all 48 four thousand foot peaks once in each month of the year (a total of 576 climbs), and there is the 48 in 1 winter club, where membership is gained by climbing all 48 four thousand foot peaks in one winter season.

My personal history of hiking in New Hampshire covered eighteen years, from 1972 through 1990, and it took me the first fifteen of those years to climb all of the 48 peaks over 4000’ in the White Mountains. The summits vary greatly both in elevation and terrain; the lowest peak is the wooded summit of Mt Tecumseh at 4002' and the highest point is the rocky summit cone of Mt Washington at 6288', a place famous for the highest wind ever recorded and home to the world's worst weather. When my days of hiking in the White Mountains were over, Mt Moosilauke stood as the one 4000’ summit most visited by me, having climbed that peak 20 times.

So begins my personal history with the 48 peaks over 4000'in New Hampshire. To read the complete story, follow the link below.

The 48 Summits

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Closing Galehead Hut, 1986

In 1986, I was at Galehead Hut on the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire when it closed for the season. That year Columbus Day fell on Monday, October 13, and the hut was scheduled to close that day, weather permitting. I made that outing into a three-day adventure, staying at the hut for the last two nights it was open. Late in the afternoon of Sunday, October 12, I returned from a memorable day of hiking up on North Twin and South Twin Mountains to find a group of people, along with the hut master, listening to a baseball game on a small radio that was set by a window in the kitchen of the hut, the only place where the radio could receive that channel. It was the Red Sox and Angels as they met in Game 5 of the ALCS playoffs. Losing to the Angels, and down to their final strike, the Red Sox rallied as Dave Henderson hit a dramatic home run to put the Bosox ahead in the top of the ninth. In a flash, a variety of liquors and wines, cheeses and appetizers appeared on the kitchen counter, a veritable bounty pulled from the backpacks of the assembled guests. Incredibly, the Angels tied it in the bottom of the ninth, and the game went into extra innings. There were no scout groups with kids present, no families with fussy children to contend with or cater to, just the right group of adults thrown together at the right time. Although we were in a high hut in the White Mountains, for a brief while, we were as loud and raucous (men and women alike) as any sports bar in the city of Boston, and that mood continued into the night after Boston finally sealed the victory.

This story appears at:


Link to Closing Galehead

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