Riding out the busy season
John DeVivo has had it with hikers.
Their cars clog up the roads and parking lots of Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire, 600 to 800 vehicles every beautiful Saturday and Sunday. They come in flip-flops and expect to hike three mountains. They leave trash. They come out of the woods on strange parts of the highway, lost and looking for a ride. DeVivo has given some a lift “in all their after-hiking glory.” He keeps the windows down.
The 53-year-old has been the general manager of the park going on 15 years. Many hikers are good stewards, but over time he has seen more unprepared people attempting some of the White Mountain National Forest’s most serious climbs, he said. More than 65% of hikers he sees do not have essential gear.
What also peeves DeVivo is how much is spent tending to hikers and how little they spend in return.
“The old joke is they show up with a $20 bill, and they leave with the same $20 bill,” DeVivo said.
Proving his point, a hiking shuttle system started in 2019 lost the park close to $30,000. The park rented four, 14-passenger vehicles running an approximately 20-minute loop from the Peabody Big Lot at Cannon Mountain to the Falling Waters/Old Bridle Path trailhead. For $5 a person, hikers could get dropped off and picked up. DeVivo acknowledged the shuttle kept people from parking on busy Interstate 93 and helped with the congestion of the
