RoySwkr
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The 2/22 issue of the Coos County Democrat describes Ray Chaput's retirement from the Twin Mtn Fire Department at age 74. Ray took early retirement from high-tech to own the Boulders Motel in Twin Mtn, where in his spare time he served as arson investigator, ambulance driver, and selectman. He retired from the motel several years ago, and is now thinking of moving to Denver.
Of more interest to this group, the article mentions that he had hiked all the 3000-footers in NH and has only 40 miles left on the Long Trail. What it doesn't say is that he was only the second person to do the NH3k, back in the days when there were no accurate maps and nobody who'd been there to ask, and that he left a wooden sign on most of them. (In retirement, he also put signs on some 3000-footers without 200' cols such as Flat Top and South Sugarloaf.) And while there were probably farmers and river drivers who walked the length of New Hampshire, Ray may be the first recreational user to do so, piecing together a route on logging roads in the North Country (long before the Cohos Trail was imagined) to connect to the developed trail system in the Whites. And now it sounds like he's heading west.
Of more interest to this group, the article mentions that he had hiked all the 3000-footers in NH and has only 40 miles left on the Long Trail. What it doesn't say is that he was only the second person to do the NH3k, back in the days when there were no accurate maps and nobody who'd been there to ask, and that he left a wooden sign on most of them. (In retirement, he also put signs on some 3000-footers without 200' cols such as Flat Top and South Sugarloaf.) And while there were probably farmers and river drivers who walked the length of New Hampshire, Ray may be the first recreational user to do so, piecing together a route on logging roads in the North Country (long before the Cohos Trail was imagined) to connect to the developed trail system in the Whites. And now it sounds like he's heading west.
