The Wild East

Hiking Lingo in NH You Don’t Want to Miss Out On

  1. Blue bird day – A day when the sky is a deep shade of blue and there is not a cloud in sight.
  2. Undercast – The phenomenon when the summit you are on is above the clouds such that the clouds form a plane where only other high points peek through.
  3. Peak bagging – When your hiking itinerary involves summitting more than one mountain. 
  4. Presi (plural: Presis) – A nickname for the mountains on the Presidential Ridge. Collectively known as the Presis. Presi in the singular form is often used to describe a traverse of all of them. “Going to do a Presi traverse this weekend” 
  5. Pemi – A nickname for the Pemigewasset Loop
  6. Kanc – A nickname for the Kancamagus highway. (pronounced Kank in its short form and disturbingly sounding out the full name won’t do you good with the locals. Try instead “Kanga-mang-gus” ) 
  7. The Ridge – A nickname for Franconia Ridge, home to Mountains Lincoln, Lafayette, Little Haystack, Liberty, and Flume
  8. Grey Jay (i.e. Canada Jay, Whiskey Jack) – A small bird that lives at high altitudes and is not afraid of humans.
  9. Break the trail – A term for when you are the first to pass on a trail with fresh snow thereby redefining the trail and plowing or compressing lots of snow out of the way which the next hiker will surely be happy about. 
  10. Alpine Glow – A term to describe the effect of the sunset on the mountain tops, dressing them in bright orange and pink. 
  11. Bushwhack – When parts of the trail are overgrown and you have to make your way through brush, tall grass, branches or otherwise to pass. 
  12. Cairn – A pile of rocks that officially mark the trail. Do not make new ones. Do not touch existing ones. 
  13. Drop a car – A method of hiking where instead of hiking one way and taking the same path back, you, with a partner, drive to one trailhead and leave a car there, so that you may drive together back to another trail head thus leaving a car at both trail heads so your trip can be one way.
  14. Post hole – When you step into deep snow or a path packed down by snowshoes with a bare boot and leave a foot sized hole. 
  15. Scramble – A steep, rocky section on a hike which requires hands and feet to traverse
  16. Slides – A steep, sheer rock face which are usually difficult to traverse. 
thewildeasthiker
, , , , , ,