Talk:High Huts of the White Mountains

Order of hut list

It might be prudent to arrange this page not alphabetically but rather in a north-to-south or south-to-north progression of the huts. It would make a lot more sense. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ofsevit (talk • contribs) 21:51, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

There should be a clarification that "north" and "south" here refer to AT northbound (roughly eastward in the White) and AT southbound (roughly westward). Otherwise the statement that Carter Notch is north of Madison is a little misleading. --Jnik 22:42, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

As of 4/09 the article still says Carter Notch is the northernmost. Neither http://www.outdoors.org/lodging/huts/huts-map.cfm nor http://hikethewhites.com/photos/hut_map.gif show compass orientation or direction, although it looks like Madison is far north of Carter Notch. http://www.outdoors.org/lodging/huts/huts-carter.cfm does state that Carter Notch is the "easternmost destination of the White Mountains."

I'd favor revising all the references to "northernmost"/"southernmost" etc. to "easternmost"/"westernmost" etc. Though the north-south system of terminology is customary among Appalachian Trail thru-hikers, the AMC huts aren't all on the AT, and they're arranged in something much closer to an east-west orientation than to a north-south one. Furthermore, if we take their AT order as the canonical order of the huts, each hut in the chain is indeed further west (or east) than the next, but each hut is not in fact further north (or south) than the next. 206.208.104.20 (talk) 17:37, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

I killed directions entirely from the hut listings as being very confusing. - DavidWBrooks (talk) 18:42, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

There are "huts" on the Appalachian Trail planned to open in 2009 across the border in Maine, but these aren't part of the White Mountain hut system. Cuvtixo (talk) 02:06, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Carter Boulder Field?

It's very strange to say that the boulder field and ponds at Carter were formed by a landslide that ravaged the north slope of Carter Dome. Both the ponds and the boulder field lie on the southwest side of Carter Dome, and the bedrock cliffs from which the boulders fell are clearly visible directly uphill--there's no way that they're the reult of a landslide snaking its way spiral-wise around the mountain.

I'd also be interested to see a source for the 1869 date. I'd always assumed (without much evidence, admittedly) that the boulders dated back much further than that. And neither of the links we provide as references for that paragraph mentions the landslide, as far as I can tell. 65.213.77.129 (talk) 15:30, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Upon closer investigation, I see that the Carter Notch article provides the same information. Where did it come from? Incidentally, I've checked Moses Sweetser's 1876 guide to the White Mountains; on p.14 he offers his opinion as to the origin of the boulders: "That local glaciers distributed the boulders in King's Ravine and those in the Carter Notch seems probable." (He also notes elsewhere in the book that the lakes in the notch abound with fish.) This really doesn't seem like the description of a scene of recent devastation. 65.213.77.129 (talk) 15:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

No, There's no way that the lakes and the boulder field date only to 1869. They're mentioned, for example, in the December 1853 issue of Putnam's Monthly, which gives a detailed description of an excursion up into the notch, including the debris from a fairly recent landslide that the author calls the "Great Slip." But even that landslide can't be the one that produced the lakes and the Ramparts, since the author then goes on to describe ascending further before reaching an area of "wild jagged rocks, thrown convulsively together," with "gaps between the rocks where one may look down thirty feet into hollows, with ice lingering yet." This is clearly a description of the Ramparts, where even in these days of global warming you can find ice lingering into early August in the deeper boulder caves. Then follows the description of the "two lakes...close together, in the very heart of the notch and almost at the 'height of land'" So we can conclusively say that neither the boulder field nor the lakes were formed by a landslide in 1869. I'm going to delete that (unsourced) claim. 206.208.105.129 (talk) 19:37, 5 September 2014 (UTC)