The index to all topics in this sampling of Ruth Doan MacDougall's extensive and varied career as an author is HERE.
Ruth's father, Daniel Doan, an avid and highly-respected author and hiker, created two hiking ghideswhose audience would be those who were hiking tails in the White Mountains specifically and throughout New Hampshire in general. Both titles began with "50 More" and they were so successful commmercially that the publisher recruited experts from around the nation to create a local version of "50 More..." titles. Daniel Doan continued as the author of the two he originated, including the work of verifying trail conditions and local changes before updates were published. Upon his death in 1993 Ruth took over his work, hiking each trail and noting changes that had occurred since the last publication; editing the previous edition to reflect and update those changes.
Of course, current hikers are now better-served by using ebooks and apps that can be up-to-date within days of trail changes, but there was a time when either a printed guidebook (or pages torn from it to save weight in the backpack!) was an essential for the prudent hiker.
Whena new edition was published Ruth usually wrote a "Ruth's Neighborhood" blog entry to announce the new publication. Two are offered here on this page.
Guidebooks for Hikers
Our Green and Stone-Ribbed World
June 30, 2014
A year ago I wrote a piece for this Web site (titled “Why Climb a Mountain?”) about the publication of the seventh edition of my father’s 50 Hikes in the White Mountains. This year (2014) brings the publication of the sixth edition of its sequel, 50 More Hikes in New Hampshire.
The first edition of 50 More was published in 1978, and the back cover explained, “Dan Doan turned a lifetime interest in hiking and talent for writing into his first guide published in 1973: 50 Hikes in the White Mountains. Four printings later the book had sold 50,000 copies and spawned an entire series of similar guides for each New England state. Now, in his latest book, Doan offers an entirely new selection of trips. These focus on the less traveled routes of this state of scenic splendor . . . Doan does more than just direct—he makes the outdoors come alive. His text draws on an enormous store of information gathered over five decades of hiking and writing: anecdotes, legends, and practical advice about history, geology, plants and animals, weather and hiking.”
The White Mountains and north-central New Hampshire were what Dan knew best, so for this sequel, which covered the entire state, he explored new territory in south-central and southern New Hampshire.
I was living down in Farmington then, and with Dan I climbed the best-known mountain in the area, little Blue Job (pronounced as in “the patience of Job”). Neither he nor I had climbed it before; it was something new for both of us to learn. Decades later, when I took over the updating of the hiking books after Dan’s death in 1993, I learned a lot about my native Granite State while working on 50 More, driving around the state locating trails with Don (Don, my husband, not Dan, my father—oh, the confusion a vowel can cause!). Hiking the trails, I realized more than ever how much Dan had learned too. For example:
The Barrett Mountain hike is so far south it heads toward Massachusetts, and Dan wrote:
Blueberries in June? To a man from central New Hampshire, June is early for blueberries. Although later he’s accustomed to extending the season by going farther north and upward in the mountains, he thinks finding blueberries during strawberry season is too much luck for his own good. Nevertheless, I ate blueberries on Middle Barrett one recent June 22 and at home the same day picked strawberries for supper.
Dan’s writing made 50 More, like 50 Hikes in the White Mountains, as enjoyable to read in an armchair as to use on a trail. Here are some more quotes:
The universal reaction at the instant of stepping out on the rock is awe blended with delight (usually indicated by an involuntary gasp). The impact lingers in your memory. It’s not the scenery alone; it’s the power underlying our green and stone-ribbed world.
The forest is spacious and lively with migrating birds. A myrtle warbler, yellow, white, and black among a shadbush’s white-lace flowers, can make you a lifelong birdwatcher.
The seasons reverse themselves as you climb. Early spring surrounded you at the start along Tecumseh Brook. There all kinds of plants were rushing to airy life after a winter protected by fallen leaves. Now at 3,000 feet, late winter encloses you.
But pause and look back so you’ll fix this section in your mind for the return trip. Heedless hikers, having lingered overly long at the falls, have been know to hurry inadvertently into the little clearing and then take a false trail leading only to the bosky wilderness.
The Pemigewasset Wilderness flames no more with the lumberman’s forest fires but annually burns symbolically with the red leaves of swamp maples in the lowlands. The mountainsides display the yellow of birches, the tan of beeches, the orange of sugar maples, and the lemon of poplars.
Campfires, as Thomas Jefferson said of liberty, require eternal vigilance.
During my years of updating the book and working with the Countryman Press editors, I’ve had to replace five of the original 50 More hikes because of various changes that have occurred, such as obscured trails and views. One of my replacements has had to be replaced! The book’s original subtitle, “Day Hikes and Backpacking Trips from the Coast to Coos County,” was changed in the fourth edition when I took over and decided on a hike in the very far north, near the Canadian border, to replace a White Mountains hike. The subtitle became even more alliterative: “Day Hikes and Backpacking Trips from Mount Monadnock to Mount Magalloway.” Don and I had eyed Mount Magalloway while checking sites in Dan’s history of northern New Hampshire’s Indian Stream Republic, which we were readying for posthumous publication by the University Press of New England. I felt that Magalloway must be part of one of his hiking books, and thus I found a place for it in 50 More—and quoted from Indian Stream Republic: Settling a New England Frontier, 1785–1842, while writing up the Magalloway hike that Don and I did. One of the quotes:
The settlers who declared themselves an independent republic were descended from] the wanderers and the rovers, the explorers, the footloose, the men seeking quick wealth through fur, the men defending thpeir log huts, the men taking to the woods-life as to a drug (pounding heart of the chase and the ultimate freedom, which they could never give up).
Over the years, the maps have changed in both books. Originally, the trail routes were simple line drawings. Then in 1991 Dan oversaw the change to “brand-new maps,” said the back cover, “which feature the described trail routes superimposed on sections of government topographic sheets. Unlike the old sketch maps, the method allows the hiker to orient more easily to the surrounding terrain.” Now in the sixth edition of 50 More, GPS coordinates have been added, and elevation graphs!
The biggest change in 50 More is the same as in last year’s new 50 Hikes in the White Mountains. Color. The photographs are in color, almost all of them taken by Robert J. Kozlow, including the charming cover photo. It’s a beautiful book.
© 2014 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved
Guidebooks for Hikers
Why Climb a Mountain?
June 17, 2013
In the spring of 1973, a package arrived for Don and me. It held a copy of a book titled simply Fifty Hikes. Inside, the author—my father—inscribed it:
For Don and Ruthie: On these occasions I never know what to write except, Love, Dan
Of course I burst into happy tears.
A few years earlier the publisher at New Hampshire Publishing Company had suggested Dan write this book, after Dan had written two novels and many short stories and articles during previous years. Now here it was, a guide to New Hampshire’s White Mountains and also to the history and flora and fauna of this place Dan had been exploring since boyhood. All of Dan’s decades of hiking experience and knowledge, his love of the land, his skills as a woodsman and a writer, went into this book.
Because of Dan’s writing, the book was hailed as one to be savored in the armchair as well as used on the trail. Here are examples:
“Birds along the trail, such as thrushes, are typical of the deep woods, although a scarlet tanager sometimes flits and calls among the high branches, or a fluttering redstart flashes among smaller trees.”
“In spring and fall, watch out for ice on the rock. You could slide a long way into the trees with time to think about other errors before the crash.”
“Cascade Brook rushing down the mountainside may not seem to be plunging toward the sea, but surely it is, and will return as water vapor in clouds to again drench these mountains and replenish this lovely brook.”
“One hiker . . . tells of discovering evidence of toil and poverty. Near the [lumber camp] dump he unearthed a rotted leather boot that had been resoled four times. Nails held leather to leather on this relic, and attested to a lumberjack’s ‘making do’ his only pair of boots. Yet the hiker recalled that many old lumberjacks look back on their younger days in the camps and forests as the best years of their lives. (Rough on the forests, however.)”
The book’s success made the publisher suggest a sequel. So Dan wrote 50 More Hikes in New Hampshire, and in subsequent editions the first book became titled 50 Hikes in the White Mountains. The publisher next suggested that he write a Vermont hiking guidebook. In his mild way, Dan replied, “It’s taken me fifty years to learn New Hampshire. I’ll stick to New Hampshire."
But he had started a series, the 50 Hikes series, which Countryman Press in Vermont acquired when it bought New Hampshire Publishing’s outdoor recreation list in 1981 (and which now covers many, many states, from Maine to Alaska). His editor at Countryman Press, Christopher Lloyd, later wrote, “We have developed a friendship that has transcended the usual business relationship. Several of us have hiked with Dan and his wife Marjorie in the White Mountains or visited them at their home in Jefferson, and there are files upon files of friendly, informal correspondence to attest to the mutual affection. Dan is never ‘business only.’ In his letters and phone calls, he always shares something personal, an event from the day or a recent sighting of a rare bird. While his writing style and gentle humor are sufficient rewards in themselves for an editor, it’s also true that his books keep on selling, year after year....It is probably safe to say that only the Appalachian Mountain Club, in which Dan was an active member, has introduced more people to the joys of hiking in his beautiful state.”
Dan’s two guidebooks came to be considered classics. Philip N. Cronenwett, then Curator of Manuscripts and Chief of Special Collections at the Dartmouth College Library, said of the papers Dan gave to the library, “Dan’s work, both in fiction and nonfiction, is steeped in the history and traditions of New Hampshire. Dan is, perhaps, best known for his very popular 50 Hikes guidebooks written with an understanding of the history of the areas covered and an appreciation of the beauty of the state. These books are so popular that they have gone through several editions and are considered the standard works on the subject. One of the goals of the Dartmouth College Library is to collect and make available the papers and manuscripts of important American literary figures. Among these are Robert Frost, Erskine Caldwell, Genevieve Taggard, and Kenneth Roberts. Dan Doan’s papers are among those collections of American writers who have made significant contributions to literature. We at Dartmouth are well aware of the importance of Dan’s work as a writer and proud to be the repository of his papers.”
Dan continued checking trails and updating the books until his health wasn’t up to it anymore. My sister and I then checked trails for him, and I joined my town’s hiking group to check more. After his death in 1993 I took over the updating of new editions, with family and friends continuing to help.
And now the latest edition of 50 Hikes in the White Mountains has been published, the seventh edition. For the first time, the photographs are in color! Countryman Press decided that this book would be the perfect pioneer for this new format, having been the book that started the series. As I worked on the new edition, choosing the photographs that outdoor photographer Robert J. Kozlow sent me, and later as I saw the photos in the proofs, I knew that the book would be beautiful, but nonetheless when my advance copy arrived it took my breath away—and I remembered the arrival of that first copy forty years ago.
People sometimes joked with Dan about why the hell anybody would want to climb a mountain—especially during blackfly season! In his description of the Stinson Mountain hike, Dan explains, “Its elevation of 2,900 feet treats the hiker to the joy of arriving at the summit after just enough effort and distance to impart a sense of accomplishment. This delight, compounded of well-being, good luck, and the wide view, has more to do with why people climb mountains than the commonly accepted motive ‘because it’s there.’”
As Dan used to sign his books: Happy Hiking!
© 2013 by Ruth Doan MacDougall; all rights reserved
RELATED: Rebuilding the Daniel Doan Trail (PDF)
Privacy Policy
This website does not collect any personal information. We do collect numerical data as to traffic to the site, but this data is not attached in any way to our visitors' personal or computer identities. Those clicking through to other websites (other than FrigateBooks.com) linked from this page are subject to those sites' privacy policies.