Adirondack Peeks Summer 2025

year the adult group decided to do the Santanonis. On that trip, this guy Harry says, “This group is great! We ought to have a special name for this program.” I started thinking and came up with AA Trips at a Relaxed Pace. Now, what’s the acronym? SR: AARP! I love it! Did the AA trips become a regular offering each season? TG: Yes, I did another round of the Santanonis last summer, it turned out to be 14 1/2 hours, but we did it. SR: At a relaxed pace! So, are you still participating with ATIS when you want?

On skis on Marcy in 1978.

TG: Yes.

first to gain her permission to name our new ski trail the Jackrabbit Trail and second to ask her to come and preside at the dedication of the trail at the conclusion of our first year. She had no objection to the naming and wrote back very enthusiastically that her father would love it. She wrote that she was going to Norway at Christmas and he always likes to get news of what’s going on across the ocean. She ended up extending her stay there and on January 5, 1987, he died at age 111. Both of his daughters were the first ATIS trail counselors in the 1930s. They had the marvelous title of “Trail Hostesses” back then. I had the Johansson family associated with both of my jobs. SR: You became the director of ATIS in 1986 and oversaw the organization for the next 35 years. In addition to building and maintaining trails, ATIS leads hikes and camping trips, rock climbing, and canoeing trips. Over the years was your hiking schedule dictated by these two jobs? TG: It’s always changing up. When I was the guidebook editor oftentimes the need to check a trail was how I was planning my hikes. And with ATIS, I set up a schedule. I was not expected to lead trips every day, but I might be called upon to lead a junior program trip, particularly when counselors were going back to college early. At ATIS, I inherited a program called “adult slow trips,” which I thought was an insult, and it’s now just a separate “Adult Schedule.” I guided these slower hikes for a couple of years but then learned through the ATIS president that a member named Harry wanted to climb Allen. I didn’t think there was any demand for an AA-rated hike within the adult group, but I put it on the schedule and ten people signed up. The next

SR: How much hiking and outdoors activities do you do these days? TG: I try to get out and do something every day. Unless the weather’s totally gross. We do bigger hikes over the weekends because friends are usually available. Or we’ll go canoeing or skiing. I’ve been summit stewarding, and I still have occasion to go out and do trail maintenance, which gives me a reason to go up the lower lake and do something useful in the process; usually it’s the annoying little jobs like replacing a sign or something that would take a regular trail crew member out of service for the whole day. When I go out for a walk around here, I try to go where I haven’t been for a while to check things out and see if anything needs repairs. I’ve come to the point where I prefer to have a reason to go out.

SR: Are these repairs for ATIS or ADK?

TG: It’s a combination as I have become the chair of the Keene Valley chapter of the Adirondack Mountain Club.

SR: Which summits are you stewarding?

TG: Last summer, I did five on Cascade and one on Hurricane. I would have liked to do more, but my hips get a little sore after all these years of hiking. I went to physical therapy, and it was determined that I do not have hip problems or need a hip replacement, just some exercises. Before I went to Norway, I had a massage; I think that was the key. So,

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