While many in New England are enjoying the start of Spring, Winter’s grip in the high peaks of the White Mountains remains firm. But, before it draws to an inevitable close, I thought it would be a good time to address a common query I have heard for months; “So, what do you do up […]
Author: Patrick Hummel, Mount Washington State Park
As the Park Manager of Mount Washington State Park, I oversee and manage the operations of the 60 acres of the summit of Mount Washington; the highest peak in the northeast US at 6,288'. Our Park is staffed 24/7, 365 days a year and is sometimes referred to as the "Home of the World's Worst Weather".
Previously, I served as the NH State Parks Volunteer Program Manager and before that, the Park Manager at Monadnock State Park, home to the most climbed mountain in the Western Hemisphere.
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On Top Of New England
“Here on this mountain top, I got some wild wild life.”- The Talking Heads Early one mid-September morning, I arrived at the base of the Mount Washington Auto Road. It was a clear early Autumn day. Joining one of our Park Staff members for the drive up, I arrived at the summit after the nearly […]
Volunteers in the Spotlight
Earlier this month, a large audience gathered for the Annual Spirit of New Hampshire award ceremony hosted by Volunteer NH at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, NH. Now in its 15th year, the Spirit Awards honor notable volunteer contributions from around the State. Award recipients are selected from youth, adult, senior, and […]
Start with Parks: Lessons from the Trail
01.20.15 “I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I must break away and get out into the mountains to learn the news.”- John Muir For the fourth consecutive year, New Hampshire State Parks hosted “First Day […]
Home of Great Spirit
“I see the stanzas rise around me, verse upon verse, far and near, like the mountains from Agiocochook…” – Henry David Thoreau, 1841 1841 was one of many Mt. Washington trips for Thoreau, who knew of the mountain’s previous name of Agiocochook, a Native American word loosely translating to “Home of the Great Spirit.” […]
Monadnock Weekly Report. 08.22.13.
08.22.13. “Comes the morning when I can feel that there’s nothing left to be concealed. Moving on, a scene surreal. Know my heart will never, never be far from here. Sure as I’m leaving, sure as I’m sad, I’ll keep this wisdom in my flesh. I leave here believing more than I had. And there’s […]
Monadnock Weekly Report 08.16.13
08.16.13 “The waving of a pine tree on the top of a mountain-a magic wand in Nature’s hand-every devout mountaineer knows its power.” – John Muir I think I could read John Muir’s writings all day if they didn’t make me want to get outdoors so badly. It is typically why I only […]
Monadnock Weekly Report 08.02.13
08.02.13 “Not a few painters and poets of renown have been inspired by the mountain’s stalwart beauty, and it is chiefly through this physical charm that it holds the affection of a multitude of devotees.” -Allen Chamberlain, Annals Of The Grand Monadnock, 1936. *Monadnock’s Weekly Report will not be published next Friday, August 9th. […]
Monadnock Weekly Report 07.26.13
07.26.13 “That [Willa Cather] chose for her final resting place a plot in Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire, with a view of Mt. Monadnock, and that it is here she wished to rest under the inscription, ‘That Is Happiness; to Be Disolved into Something Complete and Great’, is perhaps her finest tribute to the region where her heart […]
Monadnock Weekly Report 07.19.13
07.19.13 “We sometimes hear, half waked from sleep A nearer hoof, a phantom neigh Till breezes from Monadnock sweep And bear the magic sounds away.” – Col. Thomas Wentworth Higginson. The brutally hot weather blanketing much of the Midwest and Eastern United States has been no stranger to us here in the Monadnock […]