How heavy rain is impacting trails in New Hampshire's White Mountains
NORTH CONWAY, N.H. – The White Mountains are one of New England's most beautiful sights. Now, some newly compiled data suggests there may a rising risk to the iconic mountains — heavy rainfall.
Heavy rain in White Mountains
Hiking the White Mountains can be a walk in the park to a true test of endurance that would challenge even the most seasoned hikers.
Georgia Murray is a senior scientist for the Appalachian Mountain Club. She said this research project was created after the record rainfall of last Summer.
"Last year was not a great (summer) season for us," Murray said. "Part of the unfortunate inspiration was that summer is no longer going to be an outlier."
Murray and her team worked alongside the Mt. Washington Observatory to look at data since the 1960s from different White Mountain sites - Mt. Washington Summit, Pinkham Notch, Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, and North Conway.
"We saw that most of the sites saw an increase of those days with heavy precipitation. Since the 1960s, days with one inch or more of rain increased from 4 days to 8 days," Murray said.
White Mountains trail repairs
That's where Matt Moore and the trail operations team has to step in.
"It feels like what was once-a-100-year rain event is now. You expect it almost every season," Moore said. "It's a relief if you get through a season with catastrophic flooding."
The Appalachian Mountain Club's research really helped the trail operations team. It gave them a "good reason to come up with a comprehensive plan to be proactive" about making the trail networks resilient to rain, Moore said.
That includes hardening bridges, widening trails, installing erosion resistant measures, and even closing some trails, something that Moore called "new prescriptions."
Even as all these efforts are undertaken, a little planning on visitors' parts may go a long way.
"We have this tough attitude in New England of 'Oh it's raining, we're going camping anyway.' People would be well advised to, if they see heavy rain in the forecast, to really look at their route on a map," Moore said.