The whites are an amazing resource for mountain sports of all levels. They are a bit deceptive as they lack the craggy above tree line terrain, or altitude of younger ranges - but they provide some of the longest and toughest trails in the world due to steep rocky trails which lack switchbacks. The mountains are mostly down to hard granite at this point, and as such don’t have the nice smooth trails of younger mountains.
re: switchbacks.
The trail designers, such as they were back in the day, were true masochists. Literally direct lines straight up a ridge or alongside a gully. Given that they are on the fall line, the trails become rivers during rains. Unbelievably painful to hike.
No Forest Service namby pamby shallow grades and switchbacks here! Typical: the Air Line trail, ~4500 feet up at a 21% average grade.
> No Forest Service namby pamby shallow grades and switchbacks here!
Having done trail maintenance for over a decade, describing switchbacks as namby pamby sounds childish and ignorant. I also disagree that early maintainers were masochists. I encourage you to rethink that the next time you’re out there.
Dude I am totally agreeing with you!!! Hiking is super tough when there are no switchbacks and trail just goes straight up! But that is the East - we could do with some basic trail design.