Access and Resources

CLICK HERE to get the lowdown on New Hampshire's AMC huts, and line up your next home away from home in the mountains.

White Mountain National Forest Photo Gallery

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I am no Jolly (ho, ho, ho) Green Giant, but I must say this is the best frozen niblets corn I've ever had. Just don't ask me what it tastes like. I'm using the two-pound bag as an emergency ice pack, proving once again that improv skills come in just as handy on vacation as they do any comedy club stage.

I brought my twisted right knee (recent softball injury) with me to New Hampshire's deceptively rugged White Mountains. After two days of hiking a landscape with enough boulders to keep a thousand chain gangs busy, I move like an old-nag horse. The much-needed first-aid corn comes courtesy of the Appalachian Mountain Club, which operates a network of eight European-style huts scattered throughout the 770,000-acre White Mountain National Forest. My friend Martha and I are staying tonight at Lakes of the Clouds Hut, a high-altitude oasis that can feed and sleep 90 people. There's no ice machine on site. But there is a generator that produces enough juice to run a refrigerator, which, thankfully, is well stocked with frozen veggies. Sometimes strained ligaments are the mother of invention.

God bless these low-slung, wood-and-stone shelters. What a joy at the end of a long, grimy day to rest your weary head under a roof, to be warm and dry and in the company of flush toilets, running water, and a kitchen staff that whips up splendid full-course meals.