The No List: Mossy Edition
Because a lot of you asked for it
We’re less than two weeks out from the dawn of a new year, and since each passing year of adulthood seems to involve more and more advance planning for everything in life (a necessity given how little time off from work Americans get, compared to their counterparts abroad), it’s time to start thinking about our hiking ambitions for 2024.
Some people struggle with this. I’m one of them. And for me, it doesn’t just apply to coming up with alluring ideas for where to go hiking. Sometimes, if I’m visiting my parents for dinner and they kindly ask, “Is there anything you’re craving lately?” my mind sprints in the opposite direction. I can name the foods that I wouldn’t enjoy at the moment. So what I’ll say, to give my folks some leeway, is “anything you’re feeling like…except beef stroganoff” or something like that. This can help narrow down a list of possibilities. Whenever I’m planning hiking trips, knowing where I don’t want to go hiking helps me locate the answers. So this seems like the right week for something that a lot of you voiced interest in, when I offered this idea for a future newsletter a couple of months ago. It’s time to release the first ever Mind The Moss NO LIST.
What is a No List? It’s a roundup of destinations that are mobbed or fatigued enough that you should take them off your travel list for the near future. Fodor’s publishes one of these each year, and I learned about their most recent No List via my fellow hiking author, Casey Schreiner, when California’s San Gabriel Mountains National Monument made the 2024 list. We’ve all seen our share of overcrowded peaks and deteriorating trails here in New England. Hell, I started this newsletter to spotlight overlooked hikes that people often miss as they stampede toward Mount Washington, Acadia, and all the other well-worn New England locales. So I thought it would be fitting to conclude 2023 by telling you where you should avoid hiking in 2024—the implication being that you should literally hike anywhere except for these six places. (One for each state.)
As a bonus, I’m also including a suggested alternative to each hike on the No List.
Alright: here we go!
SLEEPING GIANT (Hamden, CT)
Mountains are the stuff of dreams and legends, so of course people are going to beeline to any peak that’s called “Sleeping Giant.” And to be sure, this hulking beast in the burbs north of New Haven is scenically impressive, with its sheer traprock cliffs and comparably angular hiking trails. The problem is that the Giant has long since been awakened. The main ascent routes, such as the Tower Trail, are busy enough that making the climb to the stone lookout tower on top of the mountain can start to feel like more of an obligatory slog than a self-started expedition. And that tired sense of obligation is exacerbated by the challenge of finding parking for the Sleeping Giant trails. The Sleeping Giant State Park lots do not offer the vehicular capacity to meet demand. And before you get any ideas, don’t even think about parking on the grounds of Quinnipiac University next door, because they’re five steps ahead of you: vigilantly monitoring their streets and lots for Sleeping Giant hiker cars that they can monetize.
Instead, consider East and West Rock Parks: the twin peaks of New Haven. You’ll get more traprock, more public transit connections, and best of all, more apizza options.
JORDAN POND (Bar Harbor, ME)
This one breaks my hear a little bit. Everyone should have the chance to gaze across the glassy waters of Jordan Pond—right in the heart of Acadia National Park—and admire the bulbous forms of North and South Bubble mountains on the other side. But as a recent visitor to Jordan Pond, I can say that things are getting out of hand. The pond house restaurant, renowned for its popovers, is famously popular and it requires reservations. And the trails around the pond are starting to feel that way too. Foot traffic on the elevated bog bridges that run along the western shore has gotten crazy. All it takes is someone with zero sense of bog bridge etiquette to knock you into the muck. The traffic poses more danger on the steeper trails that begin from the pond’s edge: especially the Bubbles Trail to the top of South Bubble mountain, which involves some pretty exposed rock scrambling and a few iron ladder rungs that you have to use to pull yourself up the rough ledges. When I hiked the trail back in August, I passed two rangers helping someone who had taken a spill on the ledges. This had no visible effect on the long queue of hikers waiting to grope their way to the summit.
You can experience some banger ponds in surprising solitude at the Hadlock Ponds, which are also located in the middle of Mount Desert Island. The north shore of Lower Hadlock Pond includes a rare Acadia cascade and an Elven-looking wooden bridge.
CRANE BEACH (Ipswich, MA)
When nearly 90% of your coastline is privately owned—as is the outrageous case in Massachusetts, thanks to a colonial-era law that we urgently need to torch—options for a briny beach hike are limited and almost inevitably crowded. Crane Beach, part of the Crane Estate and managed by the Trustees of the Reservation, offers a reprieve from the nightmarish auto congestion near the Cape Cod National Seashore. But due to popular demand that’s soared since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, gaining ticketed entry to Crane Beach has become frustratingly byzantine and expensive. Even if you manage to catch a ride there on the seasonal Ipswich-Essex Explorer bus during the summer, you’re still assessed a walk-on fee to explore the beach. It’s not as much as you’d be paying if you had driven a car to Crane Beach, but given the imperative of getting more people to use public transit, it feels backwards to me. Why play into it?
Thankfully, Crane Beach isn’t the only game in town when it comes to pretty, publicly-accessible beach hikes on the North Shore. The sumptuous Atlantic Path of Rockport allows you to skirt coastal rock formations and the lush backyards of homeowners.
FRANCONIA RIDGE (Lincoln, NH)
Most of the hikes on this year’s No List were selected based on partially subjective reasoning. (Ex: “The hiker traffic seem to be worsening.”) The evidence for skipping Franconia Ridge next year is more empirical. For the last decade, driving along I-93 through Franconia Notch itself, I have watched with quiet amazement as the crowds for the famous Franconia Ridge traverse (which includes Mount Lafayette, Lincoln, and Little Haystack) have gotten bigger and bigger. Cars used to line the highway for over a mile from the trailhead, until roadside parking was prohibited and hikers were directed to overflow parking lots where they could catch a $5 hiker shuttle to the trailhead. But now the trails are showing signs of impact. On a summer weekend, it’s predicted that over 1,000 hikers pass through the delicate alpine zone of the ridgeline, and as the trails become more eroded in places, hikers are dodging that erosion by trampling into neighboring vegetation: some of which can take decades to re-grow. A federally-led restoration project with support from the Appalachian Mountain Club is currently underway, with plans to stem the damages. It will take at least five years and likely cost tens of millions of dollars. It’s the steep price of becoming an iconic hike.
If you’re craving a walk along a gusty ridge, following cairns and admiring the tundra, nearby Mount Moosilauke offers a dazzling scenic experience. (Its summit is that vast.) Take the Gorge Brook Path up, and the carriage road and Snapper Trail down.
NEWPORT CLIFF WALK (Newport, RI)
In a land of coastal opulence, the Newport Cliff Walk is a beloved tonic: a public path that takes you past gilded homes atop the local cliffs, on a hike that runs the gamut from paved walkways to stairs and rock scrambling. Unfortunately, two sections of the Cliff Walk literally collapsed last year, several months apart from each other, and Rhode Island is now asking the federal government for assistance with the lengthy repair project, which could cost over $13 million. While the Cliff Walk remains open to visitors, with temporary detours around the damaged areas, the recent collapses spotlit the elemental vulnerability of the path. The Cliff Walk is one of the state’s top tourist attractions, bringing a lot of revenue to the Newport economy each summer and fall. While there’s plenty more to savor in Newport, it might be best to give the Cliff Walk a breather as the state solves the problem of rehabbing and fortifying it.
The Cliff Walk’s crumbly troubles are a chance to acquaint yourself with Sachuest Point National Wildlife Refuge. The salt marshes and steep rocky shores here are a great place to toggle your binoculars and admire some harlequin ducks this winter.
STRATTON POND (Stratton, VT)
Vermont’s Long Trail is the oldest known long hiking trail in America. The Appalachian Trail utilizes a great big chunk of the route, as it heads north from Massachusetts into New Hampshire. So you can probably imagine what kind of fate is likely to befall the largest body of water on the Long Trail. Stratton Pond, tucked in the forested folds of the southern Green Mountains, is that superlative watering hole. The trails to Stratton Pond aren’t too bustling during the summer and fall months, but hiker activity at the pond itself can become a bit much. It’s tough to appreciate the tranquility of Stratton Pond when you’re also mindful of not wanting to walk face-first into a pair of soggy hiker undergarments that have been draped over a tree branch to dry. Or if you don’t have it in you to find out why the sixteenth thru-hiker you’re talking with is nicknamed “Goblin à la Mode.” I have nothing against thru-hikers (even the ornery ones) but each of us has to decide our appetite for their excesses. Stratton Pond will test your limits.
You can enjoy fewer hikers and more fish at Sterling Pond—the highest trout pond in the state of Vermont, and an underappreciated alternative climb to nearby Mount Mansfield, which actually came pretty close to making the No List this year.
If you’ve been been reading the free version of Mind The Moss, I have some important news for you. Now that the newsletter has been growing for 2.5 years, with enough New England hiking stories to constitute a proper archive of work, the structure of a free subscription is going to be changing in the new year. Starting in January, a free subscription will include one monthly story (down from the current two per month) and a substantial portion of the Mind The Moss archive will be going behind the paywall. You can access the whole archive and get fresh weekly New England hiking stories with a paid subscription to the newsletter. And of course, with a paid Moss subscription, you’ll also get a direct line to me for custom on-demand hiking ideas (including food, drink, and lodging suggestions) for your next New England trips. It’s been a pleasure to share so much of this newsletter with all of you and I’m grateful to all who’ve read and spread the Moss over those 2.5 years. The changes are happening because I would love to keep this newsletter cranking well beyond 2.5 years, and at a certain point, when the worth of something you’re creating is affirmed, it’s important to lean into that: for the sake of being able to continue creating. I hope some of you will follow me into Mossland in the year(s) ahead, but in any event, your interest and support helped make it possible for this hiking newsletter to germinate. Thank you.
One of the ancillary benefits of grueling outdoor survival stories is how they often put our own tribulations du jour in a harsher perspective. At least, that’s how I felt while reading this Guardian story about the ordeal of Kevin DePaolo, an experienced hiker who went for a ramble in eastern California’s Inyo Mountains earlier this month, only to have his legs crushed by a dislodged boulder estimated to have weighed 10,000 pounds. Can you even imagine? 10,000 fucking pounds. DePaulio managed to survive and give his account, and that’s thanks to the intervention of his hiking comrade (who prevented the heavy stone from crushing DePaolo entirely) and the search-and-rescue authorities who responded to their call for help. It sounds like DePaolo will be able to start walking again in the next few months and I share his story because A: it’s one of the most eye-popping hiker survival stories I’ve read in some time, B: it demonstrates the utility of having a hiking partner, and C: 10,000 pounds. I can’t begin to process that.
One last thing. If you read last week’s story about Night Hiking and you’re interested in giving it a try in Boston this winter…you should definitely watch this space in January.
One of the three routes up the South Bubble in Acadia has become muddier and wider every year. It needs a rest desperately!
I love Sachuest Point! Words to the wise: You need binoculars at minimum to see the ducks in any detail, a spotting scope is even better. Maybe more importantly, bring ice spikes or whatever they're called in winter if it's been snowy or wet.