By Nate Weitzer
A few thousand feet above one of the smallest towns in New England lies an enclave of comfort and solitude in one of the harshest environments on Earth.
Gray Knob Cabin, one of a few structures maintained by the Randolph Mountain Club in the Northern Presidential Range of New Hampshire‘s White Mountains, is a year-round destination for adventurers of all sorts, and for the caretakers who brave the elements at 4,375 feet for multi-day shifts, a home.
“Simplicity is one of the main appeals of caretaking,” said Declan Kiley, who estimates he’s spent about half of the past 18 months as the caretaker at Gray Knob. “The consistency and simplicity of the routine is something I take off the mountain with me. I think it changed how I live my everyday life.”
While there are no requirements beyond daily check-ins and weather observations, caretakers are tasked with maintenance objectives around the cabin and at Crag Camp, a more primitive RMC cabin located 0.4 miles east of Gray Knob on the edge of King Ravine. The club also offers shelters and sleeping platforms at The Perch (located at 4,313 feet near Cascade Ravine) and further below treeline at The Log Cabin (3,263 feet on Lowe’s Path).
In the winter, Kiley’s day often begins with a cold trudge over to the water source between Gray Knob and Crag, where he hacks away at ice in the wooden box over the spring pipe until his limbs warm enough to return to his cold shelter. The cabin has solar panels for lights, propane tanks for cooking and emergencies, and a wood stove fueled by bio bricks that caretakers need ration since the transporting helicopter won’t return until the spring.
In the summer, caretakers are more focused on dealing with people and poop, i.e. the composting toilets at the four shelters. The sites are awarded on a first-come, first-serve basis, which can lead to some crowding in the high season, but Kiley said it’s typical to hike up to Gray Knob on a Monday and see no one until Saturday afternoon.
The guests who trudge up to the shoulder of Mount Adams in winter or “shoulder season” are often looking for a glimpse into the past, and a front-row seat to the mountains that claim to be home to the world’s worst weather.
“It’s insane that you can show up and sleep right at the ‘3-yard line’ of treeline,” said Intervale resident J.P. Krol, a member of the RMC Camps Committee. “To have that kind of access on a year-round basis is pretty unique.”
The RMC cabins provide a different experience from the Appalachian Mountain Club huts, most of which are seasonally operated with running water, aside from lower-elevation locations at Carter Notch, Lonesome Lake, and Zealand Falls.
Meals aren’t provided at Gray Knob, there is no heating source at Crag Camp, and any water available for dishwashing is provided by the caretaker’s labor. In that sense, the club’s ethos harkens back to the simpler time of its founding.
“We’re trying to have a low-tech and low-key atmosphere,” said RMC Board of Directors president John Phinney, whose family has been part of the club for 70 years.
“We try to de-emphasize things like phones. We don’t provide food, or entertainment, although there is plenty of literature available, and some caretakers have musical instruments.”
Founded in 1910, a year before the passage of the Weeks Act that would lead to the federal government purchasing and protecting the White Mountain National Forest, RMC is built on the commitment of passionate volunteers, with caretakers and trail crew the sole paid employees.
Through membership dues and fundraising efforts, the club has expanded over the past century, and is now run by an accomplished collection of 15 board members. With fewer than 400 full-time residents per the latest census data, Randolph is inextricably tied to the club and the mountain trails it stewards.
That connection motivated John Tremblay, Peter Rowan, Pat Hackett, and others to spend over six months living and working in the alpine at Crag Camp when Gray Knob was torn down and renovated in 1989. When Crag Camp was rebuilt in 1993, they lived in a makeshift shanty covered in tarps affectionately dubbed “The Blue Condo.”
“Every time you go up there it brings back memories,” said Rowan, who retired from the New Hampshire Department of Education in 2021 and lives full-time in Randolph, where he’s owned property since 1980.
“It warms your heart to know the caretakers are doing a great job of continuing the tradition and putting the RMC first in everything they do. They’re great stewards.”
Tremblay was a 15-year-old kid when he first visited Gray Knob and he said he “instantly fell in love with the place.” A carpenter by trade, he moved to Randolph in 1981, sold his house in 2018, and splits his time between Randolph and Florida, but the 67-year-old is planning to lead a job replacing the roof on Gray Knob (in 2026) and Crag Camp (in 2027) with one co-worker and some help from RMC trail crew members to do the grunt work.
“I guess it prepares you for life anywhere else, because you’re pretty much on your own and what you bring with you mentally and physically is what you have to deal with,” Tremblay said about his experiences caretaking in his 20s. “You learn to improvise and not sacrifice, but to be content with what you have.”
One of the first people Tremblay met on his way to his first summer shift was Steve Chase, who was on his way down from Gray Knob after wrapping a spring caretaking shift in 1981. Now an RMC board member and a senior director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Chase said he was inspired to start a career in conservation 36 years ago after several stints with RMC.
Chase and Brad Meiklejohn just published a group of essays compiled over 70 years from caretakers at Gray Knob called “Letters from the Mountain.” With a window into the perspective of generations of conservationists who spent days, weeks, or years of their lives at a remote post, Chase said the common thread is “a love of place, and transformational experiences that helped guide their lives after they left the mountain.”
Kiley is carrying that torch into the present day by ambling down from Gray Knob to take environmental science courses at White Mountain Community College in Berlin, N.H. With every round of hiking between Crag Camp, Gray Knob, and the Perch on daily rounds, every sunset he catches from the Quay viewpoint, and every bird or pine marten observed near his outpost, Kiley is being shaped by the land that he’s tasked with preserving.
“It feels like home. When you’re a caretaker you become very intimate with the mountain,” said Chase. “When you’re packing loads, week after week, you get to know every rock. We had names for every place you might stop for a breather. Every tricky spot, or rock ledge. You just really get to know the place well.”
Nate Weitzer is an avid trail runner, backcountry skier, and mountain climber living in North Woodstock, New Hampshire, where he writes for multiple publications. Over the past 20 years he’s thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail, climbed Mt. Rainier, Adams, Baker, Hood, and skied off multiple volcanoes. Weitzer has summitted the NH 48 in all four seasons, finished the ADK 46er list while working trail maintenance in the Keene Valley area, and completed the Colorado 14ers over the course of four summers. He’s written about the inaugural White Mountains 100 and ultrarunner Lexi Jackson for Northeast Explorer.
