National Park After Dark - Death Markers in the Live Free or Die State ft. Marianne O'Connor: White Mountains National Forest

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

We are joined by author of “Haunted Hikes of New England” Marianne O’Connor to talk all things trail death in the White Mountains. A self proclaimed collector of ghost stories, NH native Marianne is an avid hiker and historian. She shares the stories behind some of the most notable death markers in the White’s and what we can learn from the tragedies they commemorate.You can find more information on hiker safety cards here and find her book here! Please consider purchasing from your local bookstore :)For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Uncommon Goods: Use our link and get 15% off your next gift.Zocdoc: Use our link to download the Zocdoc app for free.Lume Deodorant: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @lumedeodorant and get $5 off off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code [NPAD] at lumepodcast.com! #lumepodBeam: Use our link and code NPAD for up to 40% off.  For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hi, everyone. Welcome back to National Park After Dark. We have another fun episode for today where we have a guest. A really fun guest. She's such a good time. On the podcast today, we have Marianne O'Connor, who is a New Hampshire native and is from the area very close to us and is an author. And we're getting ramped up for spooky season here. So she is the author of Haunted Hikes of New Hampshire, which we're very, very excited

to tell you all about. It's our home. It's our home state. She's published two books highlighting the haunted hikes around the White Mountains of New Hampshire and is the author of books we have used for research in our own stories on the podcast. She is an author and retired educator from New Hampshire. As a teenager, her father included her on several White Mountain hiking trips. And after that, she was just hooked, just kind of like us. Like we got up there and we're like, hey, we love it up here. Marianne began pursuing her 48, 4,000 footers of New Hampshire, which if you're not familiar with, the 48,000 footers that are in mostly the white mountains of New Hampshire that is this huge feat for people to go out and set their mind to do.

And she finished it in 2004. And not only did she finish it in 2004, but then she did it all over again in 2011. She has participated in Flags on the 48, a memorial hike commemorating the victims from 9-11 and other memorial hikes over time. And while hiking throughout New Hampshire, Marianne discovered some unusual stories and she began documenting them. A woman after our own heart, truly. For real. In 2008, Marianne published Haunted Hikes of New Hampshire and a second edition with additional

stories and hikes, which was published in 2019. She thought, hey, a book about haunted outdoor places might just excite children and their families enough to want to come out and explore them. And in 2016, Marianne retired and moved on over to Maine. And she continues to hike and discover interesting stories to add to her collection that she hopes to share with her readers, and she kind of gets into that a little bit at the very end, just some things in the works. She is often joined by her two daughters and her dog Bella, and today she's joining us. So without further ado, everyone please welcome Marianne to National

Park After Dark. Let's get started. Welcome, Marianne to National Park After Dark. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm looking forward to this so much. Yeah, we're excited to have you on. And we've used your book before for research for our podcast. And we're always excited to talk to a fellow New Englander. And you're from New Hampshire. So we're basically neighbors. I know we're all from southern New Hampshire. And now here we are different parts of the country, for sure. Yeah. What part of Southern New Hampshire are you from? So I was in Nashua. I was a Nashville School District Guidance counselor for 20 years and began doing a lot of my research because of a goal I had to get children and teens and families interested in the outdoors. And I thought,

why not entice people with a haunted ghost story to make them want to explore the mountains? And it has just hit a very positive and very people are drawn to that. And I think, think it's it's just been great i've i've never expected the success that the book has had so i see it everywhere yeah i see it everywhere and so do we which is so such a cool moment i'm sure for you when did you so obviously you wanted to help inspire children teens kids and their families to get outdoors what kind of started your endeavor in the outdoors and your love for that so i am uh the only girl with with brothers in my family. I was raised by brothers. It's like being raised by wolves, but a little different. All male cousins. And my father would take my brothers and my,

hit their cousins and friends on these hiking trips to the White Mountains. And I was feeling so jealous about this and so left out that I said, dad, why don't you invite me? I want to go. And he would say, oh, you don't want to be around a bunch of sweaty boys and stinky. I said, yes, I do. And so he invited me along on our first trip, and he said to me, we will invite you again only if you don't complain about the hiking. You can't complain. I was about 14.

And our first hike in the White Mountains was North and South Hancock, which is a very big, you probably know North and South Hancock, big trip 10 miles in the White Mountains. And from there, I will never forget that day. I was instantly hooked to the moss and the atmosphere and meeting people on the trail. It was magical to me. And I just kept going back and kept going back until I was really on my own as an adult and driving myself to the White Mountains. And I began getting involved right after 9-11. There was a memorial hike called Flags on the 48.

I participated in that for a few years, bringing flags up to each one of the 48, 4,000. and footers to fly a flag on 9-11. And the more I got into it, I just became very involved with the greater hiking community, which is just an awesome community to be a part of. So that's really how it got started with me. How many of the 48 have you done? I've done them all. Oh, wow. I've done them all, and I've done them twice because the first time I finished, and it was partly due to being involved with flags on the 48, you're just doing 4,000 photos all the time. And somebody said to me, you must be really close. And I'd be, I don't think so. And I looked and I was close. I needed about eight left. And when I finished, I finished on Mount Madison the first time. And it was,

it was almost anticlimactic to me. I missed it. It's kind of like when you read all the Harry Potter books and you're on the last one. And it's like, is that all there is? I want more. So when I finish, I thought, you know, I don't remember a lot of these hikes. I'm going to go back and do them again. And I adopted a dog from Hurricane Katrina. I had a rescue. And I said, this is what we're going to do. We're going to climb the 48, 4,000 photos together. And I put this into a blog called Ruby on the 48, which is out there in Internet world that you can read about and see me and Ruby on all the 48, 4,000 footers.

So I recorded it and documented it and took a lot of pictures. And that was really a moment when I finished the second time. What an adventure. Sure. That's so excited. I'm working on them slowly. I'm not, I'm not, I'm like halfway there right now, but eventually. It's a big feat. It's an accomplishment. It's an accomplishment. And it's, it's funny because it's something that has emerged as, like, a bucket list or a goal for a lot of hikers to do New Hampshire's 4,000 footers or Vermont's, Maine's. My daughter is now doing the main 4,000 footers. So we are a family that hiking has been instilled in me, and I have instilled that in my daughters. So we hiked together. My daughter just did Katadden.

And so she's on a role. And I know people who've done their New England, 4,000 footers. So there's always a list to accomplish and a patch and a patch to seek. It's all there. I do have to just put a disclaimer in here because I know a lot of New Englanders, we inherently know how big of a feat that is. But, you know, people from out in Colorado, they're like, well, we have 14,000 footers. It's like, uh-huh, honey, but you're not doing 4,000 feet of elevation gain.

And a lot of these, you know, 4,000 footers in New England, you're starting at a much lower elevation. So it might not seem like it on paper, but it is, in my opinion, sometimes a lot more difficult than some of the hikes, even out here, to the taller mountains. So anyways, I just wanted to put that in there because I know there are some people out there talking about around. We are pretty badass year. Yeah. We hike elevation gates for sure. I mean, I've talked to people who have hiked all over the United States and they have said some of the hardest hikes I've ever done have been in New Hampshire.

Yes. And that is really what New Hampshire Fish and Game will tell you is that these hikes in New Hampshire as part of the AT, it's, the most strenuous and difficult part of the AT is getting through New Hampshire. And that's just something that New Hampshire fishing game and other search and rescue groups are aware of that this people who are coming through on the AT or even throughout summer visitors and tourists who come to New Hampshire and want to experience the presidentials or the White Mountain National Forest, you really need to know what you're what you're doing and be prepared. That's the most important thing.

For sure. And is that in any way tied to kind of the origin story for wanting to write your books? And I know you said, you know, the haunted and spooky, yeah, obviously draws people in, but there seems to be an underlying message of, you know, things can go wrong here and be prepared. Absolutely. Right. And, you know, it's funny because people will ask me, well, where did you get the idea for haunted hikes? And it was really one of these trips up, Carter Dome. I went to the time I hiked up Carter Dome and I stopped

at the Carter Hut Lodge, the MC Carter Hut. And right as you walk into the foyer, there's a picture of Red Mac. He's the ghost of Carter Hut. And I thought like, what? What is going on with?

There's a ghost associated with this hut. And the hut master at that time told me the story of Red Mac, who was one of the early pioneers who helped build the AMC Huts and worked with Joe Dodge. And he had said, he was a man from Cape Cod. He said, when I die, Carter Notch is my heaven. And this is where I go.

When I pass on, when I pass on into the next world, Carter Hut and Carter Notch is my heaven. And on the night that Red Mac died, the hut master's name is Joe Gill was by himself in the 1970s out at Carter Hut. It was the first year, the first time that Carter Hut was open through the winter months. And Red Mack died in the winter months. It was March. And Joe Gill was woken up in the middle of the night. His sheets and bedding flew off the bed. lights flickered and all kinds of stuff was happening

and he just couldn't understand what was happening. And later he mentioned it to a group of other AMC workers who said, Joe, don't you, haven't you heard? The night that that unusual stuff happened to you is the same night that Red Mac died. And from then on, his legend has become synonymous with Carter Hut. And as soon as you walk in the foyer, you see a picture of him

And he is, people report that they hear him walking on the roof. They see his lantern in the woods. So there's all kinds of mysterious happenings that happen, not only at that hut, but at other huts as well. And that was the first story that I heard. And I kept hearing stories. And I honestly thought to myself, there must be a collection of these ghost stories related to the White Mountains.

There has to be. And I found that there really wasn't one place. that they were all collected. And so I became a collector of ghost stories, which I still am. And I'm always asking people, oh, is there any ghost stories about this place? Oh, yes. So it's just always sort of in the back of my mind

that there's probably a ghost story related to this place. And I've just heard so many unusual stories over the years. And sometimes I have to weed them out. They're maybe not appropriate or their graphic or really horrible. But it's one way to preserve the history of what happened in the White Mountains and how the Hutt system came into play and just remembering that there have been some really awful and sad tragedies that have had an impact not only on the families who have lost them, but in the way mountain search and rescue happens and has evolved and has become streamlined because so many people do come to the White Mountains every year. And fall is the busiest time from August to October is the busiest time. So they are on high alert. Yeah, it's definitely the season is here that people are visiting the White Mountains. And I think, like you said, with these stories, it attracts people to these places. But I think that there's also, there's some big learning lessons that are inside of these stories. So sharing them is it's beneficial. It makes things interesting for other people. And it does bring.

bring an element to it of, hey, you're not totally safe here. You need to be prepared, which brings us into, I know that you have prepared a couple of stories today that are a collection of stories within the White Mountains. So we would, we'd love to hear them. I think that was a starter story to head into the other ones that you have prepared today. Great. Thank you. So the first story that I'm going to start off with today is about a memorial, the first Memorial that appeared on Mount Washington. And that is the death of Lizzie Bourne. And she's probably, a lot of people have heard of Lizzie Bourne.

And there's a lot of maybe misinformation about, you know, what happened to her or how this tragedy played out. But Lizzie Bourne was the first woman to be documented to lose her life on Mount Washington. And she was a young debutante from Kenny Bunk. Her father was a judge. Edward Bourne, and they were a family that came from wealth. There was a lot of well. Kenny Bunk is a beautiful place to visit.

And at this time, 1855, 1856, the Summit House was open. People were going to the White Mountains for the first time to see some of the structures that were on the mountain. Lizzie and her cousin Lucy Bourne had a dream of seeing. the sun rise from the summit of Mount Washington. And that became the ambition for this trip that they took in September of 1855. And Lizzie's uncle George born planned the trip. And he and his wife, Lucy and Lizzie, went up by train and by coach and went to the Glenhouse, arrived there in the early afternoon of September 14th, decided to have lunch. And then they,

they were going to take a walk up the old bridal path to the summit. And at that point, the path was not even completed. But they had a late start. They began hiking. And in 1855, you had women wearing long, woolen dresses and capes and bonnets. And they were not prepared or they had no idea what they were in for. and they never really lost their way, but a number of situations came up, and George didn't hire a guide. He could have, but he didn't.

They got a late start. They could have started earlier, but they didn't. And just a series of mishaps came up along the way, and they reached some ledges and watched the sunset. But as the sunset, a storm was blowing in. The weather changed. The temperatures dropped. and they were just ill-prepared to spend the night. And George did the very best that he could to protect Lizzie and Lucy.

He built a stone structure out of rocks. And if you can imagine how he went about doing this, it was dark. He didn't have any kind of matches or lighting. He was collecting rocks with his bare hands in the dark to try to protect his niece and daughter. And they spent a cold, cold night huddled, uh, trying to, to preserve their strength. And sometime during the night, probably about 10, 11 o'clock, Lizzie passed away.

Her death is associated with hypothermia. And in the morning, when they woke up, they realized they were just almost a half a mile from the summit. They were so close, but they hadn't realized it. And after this fatality, when people were at the top of the summit house, realized what had gone on, there was, you know, things. spring into action and her body was brought down and transported back to Kenny Bunk. But after the accident, George was never the same. He was just a broken man and the toll of grief was too much for him.

He died just about a year later following Lucy's death in 1856. And one of the things about a visit to Kenny Bunkport is that George Bourne lived in a house called the Wedding Cake House. It's a very famous house is probably the most. Oh my God. Yes. I know exactly which one you're talking about. It's a yellow house and it was actually a wedding present to him, to George and his wife. And after Lizzie's death, he stayed in that house and really never left. He was depressed. He felt the burden of of guilt and grief. And that is where he died is in the wedding cake house. So if you go to Kenny Bunk, You can visit some of these historic places, including the wedding cake house, which I did over the summer. Lizzie is buried in Hope Cemetery in Kennabunk.

Lizzie's father wanted to build a gigantic monument and have the monument brought up to the top of the mountain to mark the spot where she died, but it was very impractical and too heavy. So the monument that was created really serves as her headstone in Hope Cemetery, which is part of the family plot. and I visited that as well. The monument that's on the summit is a very small structure. And you will see it if you take the Cog Railway, it goes right past it. The land on which Lizzie Bourne passed away is owned by the Cog Railway. And so they preserve that year after year. It's been replaced a few times just because of weather.

And they have really a lot of nice things to see at the Cog Railway Museum. They have a lot of Lizzie's things and artifacts, and her portrait is there. Mysteriously, a lot of people have seen Lizzie's spirit rising from that marker. I've had people have experience, a good friend of mind, Dan Chesney. He's an author that's written about Mount Washington extensively. He visited the marker one night and heard a whisper in his ear, and he felt, that this was Lizzie, what most people report seeing is a spirit or an image. It's very translucent, very willy, rising up from the marker and pointing toward the summit as if to say that's where

I wanted to go, but I never got to see it. So that's part of her legend and her mystery. She was from Maine and she's buried in Maine, but her spirit lives on on Mount Washington. I have I've hiked Mount Washington a couple of times and I've never seen her memorial and now I want to go back up and go see it. It's remarkable and really the Cog Railway will take you right by her spot. So later when I will be sharing a lot of pictures with you, including the Wedding Cake House and Lizzie Bourne's Memorial. But it's almost at a spot where a trail doesn't necessarily go by it because the railroad tracks go by it. But the best way to actually see it is actually from the Cobb. But you can see it from the Jewel Trail.

So depending on which direction you approach, which trail you approach, you might not see it. And you might not know any of these memorials are on the mountain. But there are about six of them there. Yeah, well, especially if they're so small and kind of inconspicuous, if you're not really looking for them. Right. I feel like 90% of people would just kind of breeze on by them unintentional, you know, not intentionally, but just not realize. Yeah, not realize.

Well, thank you for sharing that story because it's, it's, I feel like this whole conversation is going to do this, but I'm coming home for the first time in several years for a little while, a good chunk of time, like two weeks during the fall. And I'm really excited to get into the mountains and maybe Cassie and I can do a cog railway trip and I'd never done it before and it was so much fun. and as a hiker, and my father told me this, oh, the people who ride the Cog Railway, oh, Taurus, oh. And as a hiker, there's a little inside joke that you moon, you flash a moon at the Cog Railway when it goes by. I've never done that, but I know of people who have done that.

It's okay. And I wrote the cog for the first time. I wrote the cog for the first time over the summer. and I loved the experience. I didn't think I would. I loved it. And it was just, it was so much fun. I could, I want to go do it again. Yeah. So. I have admittedly, I have hiked, two of the times I've hiked Washington, I have taken the cog down. Like, I'll pay for it. Like, I don't want to walk down this. It's, and I've taken the cog down. And I agree. It's a fun experience. And the views are just amazing. Yeah. It's a cool ride. And it's a historic ride, too. It's a historic ride. And even the top of the mountain, the visitor center, has also a portrait of Lizzie that they will say at the visitor center, other people who will have come to visit will look at the portraits and say, I think those eyes are following me.

There's something odd about this portrait. So there's really a lot of things going on with Lizzie that the summit will, the AMC, and including there's a visitor center and the White Mountain. National Forest. They talk about this, that it's a real thing. He's part of the presence that is an energy on Mount Washington. Very cool. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen.

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Valley 3,6, 2326, participating stores only while supplies lastly app for full terms. Tell us more. Tell us more. Yeah, tell us more stories. So the next story that I'm going to talk to you about is the tragedy of Alan Ormsby and Father William Curtis.

And Father William Curtis was not part of the clergy, but he was considered at this time in the year 1900, right at the turn of the century, to be the father of American amateur sports. He was an extremely athletic man for someone who is 61 years old. He did gymnastics. He ran, raced as he played football. And he hiked. He was a big hiker.

And both Alan and William were from New York, and they were part of the Fresh Air Club. And on June 30th, 1900, there was a field. summit meeting for the AMC on top of Mount Washington at the Summit House at that time. And Alan and William set out to take in, they climbed Mount Willard. They then crossed over and planned to hike the Southern Presidential's, Mount Franklin, Monroe. And their end point would be the summit meeting on top of the summit, and they never arrived. A terrible ice storm blew in. And this was June 30th of 1900. And this is, again, type of weather catastrophes and elements that can happen just in the drop of a dime that can happen on Mount Washington. And that's precisely what happened on that day. They struggled.

There's a partial recreation of how this accident played out, but both men were killed. in the storm. Their bodies were found three days later. And it was very, very emotionally upsetting for the group that was on the summit. Part of their mission, ironically, was to talk about safety. All kinds of people are coming up to the White Mountains. It was one of their topics of discussion was how to plan for safety being safe up in the White Mountains. And here their most two prominent hikers were killed in this, in this horrible storm. Following their deaths in 1901, the Fresh Air Club dedicated two monuments, two bronze plaques

and a wooden cross at the spot where each man was found. And they took the Crawford path to Mount Washington. That was the route that they took. Those plaques and those crosses have since deteriorated. The wooden crosses are long gone. There are still cairns where, their bodies were found and each plaque has mysteriously, or maybe not so mysteriously,

disappeared for some time. There's speculation that they could have been vandalized or stolen, but at some point the plaque for William Curtis disappeared and then reappeared. And one of the stories that I heard about the plaque was that William Curtis's plaque removed itself and then somehow wound up on the steps or on the deck of the lakes of the Clouds Hut. And following Ormsby and Curtis's death, it was at that time that the AMC realized a shelter needed to be created near Bigelow Lawn where their bodies were found. So whatever happened to William Curtis's plaque, it's now back where it needs to be with the AMC and it's hanging on the wall in the crew room at the Lakes of the Clouds Hut.

Alan Ormsby's plaque is out there somewhere in the world. I know the AMC would like to have that returned or have that back, but either case, their memorial cairns are still there and you can see them, you can see William Curtis is from the Dry River Trail or from where Crawford Path meets that junction. And Alan Armsby's cairn is a little bit further up. Part of the speculation was that Curtis went down first and Alan Ormsby being younger, tried to make a run for the summit and just the jagged rocks and the tile of debris that he had to go through with wind and ice whipping him. When they discovered both of their bodies, they had just been ravaged by with bruises and the elements. So they really died a terrible death.

And part of the impact of their death was that it created an urgency for a shelter to be built. And so the following year, a very crude shelter went up. But eventually in 1915, the Lakes of the Cloud's hut was created and built and constructed. And it's almost partly due to the tragedy that took the two men's lives. And it was really the impetus for the entire AMC hut system. Wow. I've been to Lake of the Clouds Huts several times and I never knew that story of the origin story of why it's there. That's really how it came about and all it really became an impetus to create these hut systems, safety huts and caches for anyone who's finding themselves in an emergency. And so I've also stayed at the Lakes of the Clouds Hutt a couple of times. So it's a wild place. It's a lot of

bunch of go to. Yeah, it's so beautiful. It's hard to, like, go to these places that are so beautiful and realize such tragic and awful stories have happened there. But, I mean, being at Lake of the clouds, there's the alpine lakes that are right there. You have the views of the white mountains of New Hampshire. There's Mount Washington right above you. I mean, it's such a beautiful place to be. It is. I'm going to tell you another story a little bit later, the broadcast of Ben, Campbell's boots, which are also stored and nailed to the wall at Lakes of the Cloud's hut, very close by to where the plaque of William Curtis is. And Ben Campbell was an AMC worker who was at the Greenleaf hut. This was during the late 70s, 1980. He was a young man. He's from Randolph.

And his dream was, like many AMC workers, was to be the hut caretaker for Lakes of the Cloud. this was like the end all dream for him. And he was the hut master at Greenleaf. But he wanted to go to Lakes of the Clause. You wanted a little loftier position over there. And at the time in 1980, his parents went on a trip to Scotland. And he went along to see his ancestral roots in his home. And he was hiking some cliffs and he fell to his death.

This was in 1980. and the parents of Ben were so overcome, but also held such gratitude for what the AMC had given to Ben, that this was his life. And as a, as a memorial, as a gift, they presented the AMC Greenleaf Hut with Ben's hiking boots. This was a gesture to say, thank you so much. Ben loved being here. This was his whole life. So the boots went on display at the Greenleaf Hut, but something mysterious was, happening with the boots. They would walk themselves around at night,

and AMC crew members would find the boots outside, or they would find them down the hall. And there were other mysterious things happening, like a shadowy figure would be seen, looking through closets and storage spaces. And the Greenleaf Hut crew members did not know what to do with these boots. So they decided, hmm, I think that Ben Campbell really wanted to go to the lakes of the cloud. So we'll give the boots to them. And so that's what they did. They gave the boots to the

Lakes of the Cloud's hut. And the crew members at Lakes of the Clouds said, we're not going to be messing around with boots that walk around on their own. We're going to nail them to the wall. And that's where they are. If you visit the lakes of the Clouds Hut and say, I've heard the story of Ben Campbell's boots, they will show you the boots. They're nailed to the wall. And have they escaped since they've been nailed to the wall? They have not. They are still there. Maybe they didn't need to be nailed to the wall and he just was trying to get over there, you know? Yeah.

That's what I think too. So that's a really interesting story. That's a little extra precaution though with the nails. Yeah. Definitely. Now I need to redo this Mount Washington hike and go visit these places. And, you know, I think it can be done because when I was taking the cog up, there's a way to see some of these memorials by taking the cog. You're back down at the Amunusik Ravine Trail, where the parking lot is.

And there's another beautiful memorial, which I'm going to get to next. And this is a memorial of Herbert Jensen Young. He was an 18-year-old student at Dartmouth. And in 1928, he and a group of Dartmouth students climbed Mount Washington over Thanksgiving weekend. And again, time of year, November, brutal conditions in the White Mountains. and the group just missed a cutoff trail. One thing led to another. And as they were coming down the Aminusik Ravine Trail,

it was late at night and Herbert started to lose consciousness. He was fading very fast and his friends attempted to carry him, but he passed away. And the point at which he passed away was on the Aminoosic Ravine Trail near Gem Pool. And the following years, the Dartmouth Outing Club created a bronze plaque for Herbert that they placed at the gem pool. And it's actually a very beautiful memorial. The gem pool is a destination anyway. So you can see this memorial very, very easily. It's an easy hike. It's a 1.2 mile hike up from the Cog parking lot and back down. It's a moderate

hike. Families can do it. I did it over the summer. The trail was very wet. It's been a wet summer. but it's actually a beautiful destination. So by taking the cog, you can see Lizie Bourne's memorial. You can get to the summit, and there's another memorial inside the summit building that you are aware of. Albert Dow's memorial is in there. And so there's a way that you can really see some of these memorials and see these places where these people passed away.

Yeah. It's interesting that you brought up Herbert because I was, I, I, just pulled up my phone because on June 23rd, I hiked Mount Washington and I did the Aminoosic Trail. And I have a photo on my phone of his memorial because I didn't have service. I remember. And I was like, oh, I want to find out who he was, why he died here. And for whatever reason, I never came back to it. And I never researched it. And when you said his name, I was like, wait a minute, I was meaning to learn about this. Yep. And he was just a young, he was a young guy. He was from Missouri. And one of the things that happened as these friends were carrying his body down the trail, some, one of the friends took like a boulder, a rock and for whatever reason and carried it with him or carried it out of the Aminoosic ravine trail. And that rock was given to his family and it serves as his headstone in Missouri. So the rock that came from this tragedy at Amunusic Ravine is the rock that represents his headstone in Missouri.

Wow. Oh, wow. Yeah. And actually following Father Curtis at Alan Ormsby's horrible fatal accident, the Fresh Air Club not only dedicated the two plaques and the crosses to the two men, but they created another monument on a slide trail. I think it's called Slide Mountain. And it's in New York and the Catskills. And it's actually called the Ormsby and Curtis Trail. So they were pioneers.

They were almost considered immortals in the world of the early hiking days. And one of the books that I will refer to a lot and I suggest and recommend it to your listeners is a book called Not Without Paro by Nicholas Howe. It's a book I've read probably 50 times. And following Ormsby and Curtis's, tragic deaths. Nick Hau said that their fatal accident stands as the beginning of modern eight-day misadventure in the White Mountains. It really almost began, you know, what we have today in responding with rescues, in responding with a streamlined approach to how can we create more awareness to keep people safe when they come visit the White Mountains? And it's very sad that year after

a year, we still have so many tragedies. We still have deaths that happen in the White Mountains. And so it's when I've talked to Peter Crane, he's a director and curator for the Gladys Brooks Memorial Library on top of, on the summit. He has said to me, because we've talked a lot about the memorials and what they represent, what they mean. And he has said, you know, they're not meant to be teaching tools, but they are a reminder that the mountains are irresistible. People come here. They're beautiful. People want to enjoy and experience them to their fullest. But we have to remember that it's a dangerous place to.

And things can happen. Accidents happen. Things can go wrong. Especially that story, the story of the two men that you were talking about that kind of marked the beginning of, you know, getting a misadventure. But I just can't help but think back in that time. especially because you said people viewed them as a mortal and they were so experienced and they were pioneers and the way in which, I mean, June 30th and ice storm, people not from that, directly from

that area are like, what, you know? And it's just obviously, especially this time of year, so many people who are hiking in our area like this aren't from here. So probably wouldn't think of that. And I just can't help but think of the shock waves that those, deaths probably omitted throughout the entire hiking community, not only because of who they were in their experience, but also the way in which they died. Right. And one of the things that was often said about Father Curtis was that he was a hiking beast. He wouldn't even wear a hat or overcoat. He just was somebody who just persevered and went on and a lot of AMC members will say, well, they should have turned back. They should have known.

Those two men ran into a couple of guides and a couple of other workers who are working on the trails that day, who all turned around and headed back down to the valley for safety. And they could have done that, but they didn't. And there's another, again, sort of ghostly, otherworldly story that I've heard about Alan Ormsby's cairn is that if you, You say over his, this care and this memorial site, oh, they should have turned back. What were they thinking? You will feel a hunch to the gut that it could have happened to anyone. And that is what we say it could have happened to anyone.

Well, it's so easy. I mean, not only just with that situation, but over and over and over, you know, hindsight's 2020, knowing what we know now, knowing the end of the story. And you're looking at it through a totally different perspective and lens. it's like there are so many times that we've read stories, research stories, that it's easy to say that. But, you know, it's you weren't there and you don't know the circumstances. Yeah, exactly.

And they didn't have the information that we have now that it's already happened. Right. Right. So the next story, and I'm going to jump ahead is I'm going to be talking about Albert Dow. And Albert Dow was the only member of the mountain rescue team or part of a search and rescue team in New Hampshire to die while on an active search. And he was a young ice climber, a humanitarian, a good friend, somebody that everyone would look to and admire. And he responded to a rescue in January of 1982. And he was looking for two young ice climbers in Huntington Ravine.

when he himself was hit by an avalanche with the other rescuer that he was involved with. The other rescuer was able to radio for help and he survived. But when they found Albert Dow, he had already been crushed by a sea of snow. And he perished in an avalanche while actively searching for these two young hikers. Eventually, those two young hikers were found and they both lost their legs. They lost their limbs. Young Hugh Hur was a 17-year-old phenom ice climber cover of Outside Magazine at the time. And he took Albert Dow's legacy and lived that legacy out following that accident.

Hugh Herr developed and constructed limbs for himself to use as an amputee so that he could continue rock climbing of all things. And he went on to develop. He is a pioneer in Bionics. He's done incredible things. He works at the MIT Media Lab as a designer, and he builds prosthetics. There's all kinds of Nova specials. He's on TED Talks.

You can see him anywhere. His name is Dr. Hugh Heur. So he's lived the legacy of Albert Dow, and he honors him throughout his life with his career. Albert Dow recently, I think it was 2018, the Mount Washington, Weather Observatory named the extreme weather exhibit after hours a dedication ceremony and Dr. Hugh Hur was there. Albert Dow's family was there from the Tamworth area. Albert Dow has the distinction of having a memorial at the weather center at the weather center but also his name is on a sign on a rescue cash and that's something that will I think remind people.

about his legacy, about what he lived for and keeping his spirit and his memory alive was Albert Dow. The impact that it had on the community was so far reaching that after he died, he died in January of 1982. And immediately, the New Hampshire Senate passed legislation to cover and ensure him with life insurance, which was retroactive to when he died. And this is something that has carried on ever since so that, the future, if search and rescuers fall victim themselves during the time of a rescue, they will be covered with health insurance, life insurance policies, and other compensation. And that was really because of Albert Dow's death. So he's, the impact is just so far reaching of, of what he did. And he was a great

human being. And his family just speaks so lovingly of him. Yeah, that's a story that we covered, we covered it. It was over a year ago now. But I remember. I remember reading it and it was just so, it was such a sad story. And I recently, I did an avalanche course up Tuckerman's ravine. And we talked about him because he was in the neighboring Huntington ravine. And then this past summer, I finally went up and I saw his memorial. And I have a, I went into the museum and I saw his memorial. There you go.

Yeah. Finally, as I was doing this research on memorials on Mount Washington, I mentioned to my dad. who's my lifetime hiking buddy at 88 years old. The last hike we did together was Mount Major. She will know Mount Major in the lakes region, Alton Bay. Yeah. But 10,000 people visit probably every week, I swear. At the parking lot, you have to park way down the street.

It's insane. Yeah. It's a crazy place. And there you go. What attracts people to Mount Major, it is such a focal point. It's such a place where people want to go and they bring their children, their dogs. I've probably had High Mount Major 20 times in my lifetime. I was telling my father that, hey, I'm doing this piece on the memorials on Mount Washington. And my father said to me, well, you know about Philip Longnecker and Jacques Periscow, don't you? I don't know about that. And Philip Longnecker and Jacques were two graduate students at Harvard. My father was a student at Harvard in 1954. And these two men is covered in Nicholas Howe's book and more detail. detail. But these two men were not part of the Harvard Outing Club, but they went along for the fun. It was

January 31st, 1954. It was cold. It was icy. And Philip and Jacques hiked into Tuckerman Ravine with the Harvard Outing Club and had this idea that they were going to build like an igloo shelter to spend the night in the bowl of Tuckerman Ravine. And this was just, you know, wildly, why did they pick this spot? It was probably the worst spot they could have picked to build their, construct their shelter. But that's where they spent the night. Holly Longnecker, Philip's sister had gone with them.

She stayed in a cabin with Harvard. Harvard had a number of cabins on Matt Washington. And overnight, these men were killed in an avalanche. Their bodies were eventually recovered. And as the accident scene is being recreated, There was just this, you know, why did they do this? If only they understood their danger that they were in, but they didn't. And this is where they chose to stay.

Now, Philip Longnecker was from Toledo, Ohio, and his father's name is Durbin Longneger. And the father came out to retrieve Philip's body. There was a Jeep that Philip had taken from Harvard that he and Jacques drove up to Mount Washington to Tuckerman's Inn. and Durbin Longnecker donated the Jeep to Joe Dodge, and the Jeep was used in the future for rescues, and this was something the family had wanted. But the services that happened for Philip took place in Toledo, Ohio, where he was from. But the family thought that his spirit should live in the White Mountains,

and he is buried in North Conway, New Hampshire, and his gravestone. I've seen his grave. It's very simple. It just says, Philip Longnecker, naturalist. He was 25 years old. And when we think about just the impact of grief, the toll that grief can take on a family when something like this happens, Phillips' father was also just never the same following Philip's death. And he died four years later in 1959.

And his expressed wishes upon his burial was that he be buried by his son. And he too is buried in New Hampshire and Conway Cemetery, the North Cemetery. And this is, again, just speaks to the momentous level of grief and the toll that it takes. People sometimes are just never the same following these tragedies, especially when there's somebody so young, losing a child. We can't imagine what that must be like. So it brings me finally just to talk about safety, preparation, hiker preparedness. I spoke to Colonel Kevin Jordan at the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. And he has talked to me several times about tiger preparation, preparedness.

People come to the White Mountains, woefully unprepared. They don't have a headlight. They don't have proper clothing. One of the times that I was speaking to him, he says, up, I got to go, Marianne. We're looking for a 12-year-old boy on Mount Lafayette and a t-shirt and shorts who got ahead of his family. And at the time, maybe the parents said, oh, he's so excited. He's so excited to be here.

but they lost him. He was eventually found. He was okay. But these are the kinds of things that happened with search and rescue all the time, looking for people who aren't prepared to spend the night in the White Mountains. And about 20 years ago, New Hampshire Fish and Game, along with the White Mountain National Forest, developed the hike safe plan. It's an initiative to create hiker awareness, safety, what to bring there and back.

That's the philosophy. You go and you come back and you're safe. and just being prepared, having that checklist, you can find out that checklist on hikesafe.com. Now you can purchase a hike safe card. Card cost $25 for an individual. You can get a family card. And what the hikesave card will do is it's a way that the hiking community can put money into the search and rescue efforts that happen every year, the costs they incur, cost for equipment, training, and grief counseling. Search and rescue personnel also suffer grief and experience trauma when they are searching for

for people that are lost. Absolutely. And we'll, the link to that will put in our show description as well because obviously we have a lot of listeners in New Hampshire that would really, I think, be interested in supporting that if they do not already. Right. And this year, they're on track for selling, I think, over 12,000 cards, which is a record year. They've sold more cards each year.

And it's almost like an insurance policy. If you have an accident, if you need to be rescued, that card will serve as your ticket to have search and rescue, take you out, get you to a hospital or do whatever rescue needs to happen to you. So it's a good thing to have. And it's a way that the community can be responsive and share the responsibility of we can help search and rescue with the things that they need. Yeah.

And hopefully, yeah, you don't need to use it yourself. You're just supporting. Hopefully, you don't need to use it. That's what we all hope. But better to be prepared. Better to be prepared. I can remember being on the Bon Cliffs in September, probably 15 years ago. And it was so cold and so windy.

It was still summertime. But the wind was whipping. I remember I had my dog with me. We were so hungry. We were eating apple cores. We were that hungry. And I had mittens and I had. I was prepared for the wind.

And I'll never forget, there was two hikers who were not prepared. They were in T-shirts. And they looked at me with my mittens on and they said, we will give you an entire bag of peanut M&Ms for those gloves. Can we have your gloves? I was like, nope. It's like these are way more valuable than a bag of M&M's right now. Yeah.

So things like you don't think that in June you'll need a wool hat or mittens, but it's better to have them and be prepared than to be on top of the summit and say, oh, I wish I had brought my gloves, my hat, my headlamp, pairs, extra pairs. socks, etc. I think a lot of people think they don't realize that the temperatures and the weather at the bottom and at lower elevation is so different. Different. Different worlds. It is, especially you're so exposed up there. So you're protected when you're down below from the wind, from the elements essentially, and then you get up there and the weather is just so much different, especially heading into now when we're heading into fall and October, November, I think is a time.

period where a lot of people don't realize how dangerous it is because the weather's mild here in New England. But when you get up into these higher elevations, you're in full-blown winter. And people don't realize that yet. And Mount Washington is known as being the world's most windiest place on Earth, temperatures and wind speeds have been recorded in like 230 miles per hour. Something's so crazy. We can't even imagine it. But ice. storms and snowstorms happen in summertime. And we don't think that that's a possibility, but on the higher summits it is. For sure.

Yikes. You know, it's all pretty heavy. But, you know, I actually had a side question kind of going back to some of the stories we were talking about with the cog. Do you have it, and you may not know this, but do you have any idea if the cog does any sort of like historic talk or tour while people take it? or is it just a ride? I haven't, if I've been on the cog, I was probably like five, and I don't remember.

I think it depends on who you have as your guide that's taking you up to the mountain. There was a woman that took us down, and there was a man who spoke to us as we were riding up. And I've learned things that I was there on July 31st, the last day of July, the month of July. I learned from the Cog Railway. guides had the wettest month of recorded rain ever. The month of July, 2020, 23 was the wettest month they have recorded. It had like 17 inches of rain. It was something crazy. The day that I went there, it was raining. It was, it's been a rainy summer. Yeah, it's been rough. A lot of people have complained about that, but it was been a rainy,

rainy summer. And it was cold on that day. And it was funny because I'm, you know, I'm visiting the Albert Dow Weather Center and talking to, you know, some of the AMC workers. And at the gift shop, boom, boom, boom, boom, they're selling hats. They're selling gloves. They're selling sweatshirts. And I'm sure they do very good business selling that type of stuff and they keep it in stock. But if you're not prepared to spend some money at a visitor center and you're on the top of

Boncliffe or wherever you are, you're not going to have that option. And so, again, just knowing that you need it to go up there. But getting back to your question, they will talk about certain things in history and It was just so much fun and it was so informative. Well, thank you for all these stories today. I think it's done a combination of inspiring, at least definitely for me, to go back to these locations that I haven't seen, but it's also very eye-opening to what the elements have in store. And I think we just, we love talking about New Hampshire in general because it's our home,

our home state. We've been to most of the places that you've talked about, which it just adds another element of interest for us. and I'm sure many people who are listening. But going forward for your book, Haunted Hikes of New Hampshire, where can everyone go pick that up? Honed Hikes of New Hampshire is available on Amazon. It's available at Boncliffe Books at most book outlets, Barnes & Noble.

I don't think Borders is around anymore. But in the White Mountains anyway, we have a pretty good system with Boncliffe books. Mike Dickerman operates Boncliffe and he has various accounts with small. gift shops around New Hampshire. So it's it's easy to find. I also have an account on Amazon. If you want one signed by the author, you can find me on Amazon. And I've sold a few books, you know, especially when shows like this or I did a Chronicle one time. And I'll be like, why, why do I have so many sales? Oh, they must have ran the Chronicle special again. You know, it blows up sort of, so to speak. But you can get plenty of Hikes of New Hampshire, really at any bookstore or at Amazon.

It's easy to find. Very cool. Well, we certainly have a, we joke that we have our own personal book club on the podcast because we have so many recommendations. And yours is definitely one that we recommend for people to go check out, especially if they're interested in these kind of stories. Yeah, and of course, we'll add it to our site too. So if people need a visual of it, it'll be there. but do you have any other projects in the works or any passion projects you're doing? Funny you should say that. So I'm living in Lisbon, Maine. Now I bought a house here a couple of years ago in Lisbon.

I'd never heard of Lisbon, Maine before my life. It's Lisbon's Foss. It's on the Andrew Skoggin River. And apparently, this is where Stephen King went to high school. And he lived in the Durham, Lisbon area. I never knew this until my neighbor showed me his yearbook. I said, oh, my gosh, I know that guy. So in wanting to like learn more about my new community, I've volunteered for an organ, a committee.

It's called Positive Change Lisbon. And one of the directors asked me, hey, Marian, we want to do a cemetery thing for the fall. You're really good at that stuff with cemeteries. And can you look into that? And I thought, oh, yeah, that would be easy. Maybe some civil war soldiers. That's kind of what I was thinking. And I've discovered a story that happened in Lisbon exactly 100 years ago on

Halloween on October 31st. That's a wild ride. So I'm working on that project with our town. We're going to create a cemetery stroll. And I have a couple of talks coming up at libraries about how I researched this family through Ancestry.com. And it's kind of a really cool story. So that's coming up in October. Wow. Well, everyone in Lisbon, Maine, do you have your Halloween plans now? Your cemetery stroll, you're going to get. Yeah. But it's wild. Wow, that's really interesting. I wish I was going to be around.

I would totally go. Darn it. Well, hopefully it's successful and it becomes like a annual. A yearly. It's going to be a yearly thing. It will be the centennial of this cemetery. It's called the St. Cyril and Methodia Cemetery. It's Slovakian cemetery.

And these three men who died in an accident were buried on that cemetery on October 31st because they were not allowed burial in the other. Catholic cemetery because they were building a separate church away from the Catholic church. And so they lost their privilege to be buried in the Catholic cemetery. And they had to scramble around and they came up with some money to buy a plot. And it happened to be October 31st because they died on the 27th of October. It's just kind of a wild story. So, okay. Yeah. Don't get too much away. Don't go too much away. We'll be there next year. Yeah. 2024, you can count on it. Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you, Marion, again.

much. Thank you so much. So much fun. Well, it's been so much fun talking to you and thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and all these stories. We really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. And I'll send along some photos to share it at your website. Of course. Thank you. Perfect. Well, thank you everyone. Thanks for joining us. I will see you next time. In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye, everyone. Bye. Thank you so much for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale or story suggestion. Send us an email at Stories at NPADPodcast.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Join our outsiders-only community on Patreon

or Apple subscriptions to listen ad-free, unlock monthly bonus episodes, and exclusive content. And remember, when you support our sponsors, you are supporting our show. For our exclusive discount codes and source information from today's episode, check out the show notes. For more on our show, our book recommendations, merch updates, and more. Visit our website at npaddpodcast.com. And please rate, review, and subscribe from wherever you listen to podcasts.

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