The Appalachian Mountain Club’s Cold River Camp is a wonderful vacation destination for experiencing the charms of the White Mountains. Local hiking trails abound, from easy to challenging. Open summits, brooks, secluded pools. The Presidentials and North Conway are within striking distance for day trips, as are the Saco and Androscoggin Rivers. Settle into your cabin for a week or a partial week. Enjoy a hot breakfast in the lodge and make your trail lunch. Head out with other guests on one of the guided hikes offered daily and arrive back in time for a dip in the Cold River. Or do your own thing – hike, swim, paddle, bike, or simply relax. Discuss the day over dinner (our cooks prepare healthy delicious meals, no camp food here) then chat on the lodge porch, join in the evening activity or a board game in the lodge, read a book in the library, play ping-pong in the rec hall, or prepare for the Friday night talent show.

In the decades prior to 1911, the unregulated logging practices of private timber companies in the White Mountains had resulted in a damaged landscape susceptible to both fire and flood. Fires had burned thousands of acres, and flash floods affected the water power necessary to the mills of major industrial centers downstream, such as Manchester, New Hampshire, and Lowell, Massachusetts. Concerns over losses to industry, business, and tourism, and the growing conservation movement led to citizen action. The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) and Society for Protection of New Hampshire Forests (SPNHF) spearheaded an effort to ensure the permanent protection of the White Mountains from further depredation. After years of lobbying and intense public pressure, Senator John Weeks of Massachusetts, a native of Lancaster, New Hampshire, introduced legislation that became known as the Weeks Act. The Weeks Act was passed by Congress in 1911, appropriating 9 million dollars to purchase 6 million acres of land in the Eastern U.S. In turn, this led to the creation of the White Mountain National Forest (WMNF) in 1918, and twenty-one other national forests throughout the north and southeast. Many of the groups who were instrumental in the passage of the Weeks Act, including the SPNHF and the AMC, are still active today, and the WMNF has grown from 7,000 acres to almost 800,000. Today, the reforested mountains and hillsides supply forest products and provide magnificent recreational opportunities while maintaining healthy watersheds and ecosystems.