The feat apparently was first accomplished two decades ago by a longtime bagger of peaks. Since then, seven others have joined him, including Ed Hawkins, thought to be the second to finish, in 2002, and now at work on his third and fourth grids.
The attempt itself can seem both obsessive and sublime. It sets a ridiculously distant goal for those not satisfied with other traditional measures of the mountains, such as a single loop of the 48 4,000-footers, or summiting all 67 of New England's 4,000-footers, or climbing New England's highest 100 peaks. Yet the grid also delivers those who pursue it where they've always wanted to be: enjoying the White Mountain heights, where boreal chickadees whine in the fir-spruce forest, or a flock of winter finches rides the wind over a ridge.
Hawkins explains it like this: "Doing the grid gets you back to what you originally started doing. Just to be outdoors."
It's hard to know how many people are now attempting this significant expansion of the single-layer goal of summiting New Hampshire's 4,000-foot peaks one time, no matter the season.
Hawkins maintains an e-mail list on which he announces many of his upcoming hikes to more than 200 people. During one week in September, for example, Hawkins hiked the Kinsmans on Wednesday, Mounts Tom, Field, and Willey on Thursday, and Mount Moosilauke on Saturday morning, for which he had to hurry to beat foul weather.
Hawkins is 62. He types his e-mails in capital letters:
"HI TO ALL
THIS COMING WEDNESDAY, NOV 5, WE WILL BE HIKING THE TWINS AND GALEHEAD.
THE PLAN IS TO MEET AT THE GALE RIVER TRAIL TRAILHEAD PARKING LOT, OFF THE GALE RIVER LOOP ROAD, AT 7:00 A.M. . . .
ALL HANDS SHOULD BRING A MINIMUM OF 2 QUARTS OF H20 FOR THIS 12.0 MILE TREK. . . ."
Getting started
Seven hikers idle in the cool of daybreak, wearing boots and gaiters that cover their lower legs, packs pulled snug on their backs, with ice spikes and hiking poles dangling. Not 50 feet up the wet-leafed track, Al Aldrich, 62, says of the grid's 576 climbs, "You don't set out to do them all."
The decision to hike the grid, in other words, happens in increments, maybe after climbing all of the 4,000-footers, or doing them all in winter. What more?
