Louis Fayerweather Cutter (1864 – 1945) was the dean of White Mountain cartographers. He was a civil engineer by training and profession, and devoted much of his recreational time to the White Mountains, where he both built and mapped trails.  His first effort was an 1885 contour map of Mt. Adams, including its ridges and ravines, and his first map published by the AMC appeared in 1898. He created nearly all the AMC’s hiking maps during the first half of the twentieth century, and his remained the models for the AMC’s maps during the second half of the century. He kept careful track of trail distances, which he measured with a cyclometer, a modified bicycle wheel, sometimes seen even in very recent years in the mountains. Cutter soon after this edition added color for the contours and the rivers, streams, and ponds.

This map, which first appeared in 1916, continued in the same form, with Cutter’s name still on it, up to 1992, after which the AMC adopted GPS technology and produced wholly new maps. The maps were issued with the AMC’s hiking guide to the White Mountains, which itself went through 25 editions during the century, but some issues came out between editions of the guide.  The trails changed—and still change—constantly, being created, re-routed, and abandoned.

Although the AMC’s were the leading hiking guides, other clubs during the twentieth century served small regions within the White Mountains and issued their own guides and maps.  These include the Wonalancet Out Door Club, based in the area of the Sandwich Range, and the Randolph Mountain Club, for the northwestern region of the Presidentials, both of which are still publishing maps and guides, the Dartmouth Outing Club, the Chatham Trails Association (also still publishing a map of trails around Evans Notch), and the Chocorua Mountain Club. Some hiking maps, for Waterville Valley and Bretton Woods, were privately published by individuals. More local hiking groups existed and still exist but have not published guide books and maps.

Click here for a larger PDF version of this map which will allow you to zoom in for detail.