Adirondack Peeks Summer 2025

Tony with Bunny on Haystack in 2019.

SR: Are there any trails named after him? I know the Rooster Comb trail is dedicated to your father, and the W. A. White trail is dedicated to Bunny’s great, great grandfather. TG: The only trail that was named after Charles Alton was called the Alton Bypass, which was basically a trail that bypassed Undercliff. There might even be a sign now that says Alton Bypass, but it’s at a junction that probably half a dozen people a year visit. SR: I read in Heaven Up-h’isted-ness , that as a young man, your grandfather, Howard Goodwin, lodged at the Alton Camp and climbed Marcy with Joe Twichell, his Yale roommate. Joe was the son of the Reverend Joseph Twichell who was one of the first summer residents in Keene and the person noted for alerting his Yale roommate, Noah Porter, to the area. Noah was recorded as the first person to climb Porter Mountain, hence the name of the mountain. Noah later became the president of Yale University. I wonder if it was during this stay that Howard met Charlotte Alton, your grandmother, for the first time? TG: I don’t know whether that was the beginning or not of their relationship.

SR: In your father’s memoirs, he notes that his mother, Charlotte, and two of her friends took him up Giant, his first high peak at the age of nine years old. He also notes that Howard and Charlotte climbed a number of high peaks. Although there was no list of high peaks at this time, do you know how many they might have climbed? TG: I would say that the total number they climbed would probably be ten at the most, and they may have climbed those several times. I know they climbed Marcy. They might have climbed Algonquin because there would have been a trail up Algonquin in 1909, thanks to Henry Van Hoevenberg. The book also explains that they traversed the Great Range which officially consisted of Gothics, Saddleback, Basin, Haystack—there being no trails over Armstrong and the Wolf Jaws. It was considered a major challenge with ladders on the St. Huberts side of Gothics, its smooth rock on the Gothics west ridge (then minus any cables), and the fixed rope on Basin up a rock chute, now by-passed. SR: Your father also wrote about your mother, Jane Goodwin. Your parents were only married for a short time when Jim signed up for the Ski Troops just ahead of being drafted into the military in 1942. He was sent to Camp Hale, a training

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