Hello all,
Today I have confirmed that Paul, N1ZF has achieved his Profile of a Mountain Hiker (PMH) award as well as the Master of the Black Dog (MBD) award. These framed and other awards are based on the legends of SOTA’s W1 area summit areas, some of which are available to chasers. https://sotastore.blob.core.windows.net/arms/ARM-W1.pdf
PMH award-
To be eligible for the Profile of a Mountain Hiker certificate an activator must have entered valid activation logs from HA-113, Cannon Mountain as well as ten other HA region mountains.
The Hampshire Appalachians region contains New Hampshire’s highest peak, Mount Washington at 6,288 feet (1,918 m) as well as the remnants of the Old Man of the Mountain, also known as the Great Stone Face or The Profile. The Old Man was a series of five granite cliff ledges on Cannon Mountain that, when viewed from the correct angle, appeared to be the jagged profile of a face. The outcrop was 1,200 feet (370 m) above Profile Lake, and measured 40 feet (12 m) tall and 25 feet (7.6 m) wide.
The writer Nathaniel Hawthorne used the Old Man as inspiration for his short story “The Great Stone Face,” published in 1850, in which he described the formation as “a work of Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness.”
The Profile has been New Hampshire’s state emblem since 1945. It was put on the state’s license plate, state highway-route signs, and the back of New Hampshire’s Statehood Quarter, which is popularly promoted as the only US coin with a profile on both sides. Before the collapse, The Old Man could be seen from special viewing areas along Interstate 93 in Franconia Notch State Park, approximately 80 miles (130 km) north of the state’s capital, Concord.
The Old Man collapsed on May 3, 2003, but remains as the State Emblem of New Hampshire, despite the fact that it no longer exists.
Paul has displayed a profile in tenacity that now exceeds that of the old Man who now resides resting comfortable at lower elevations. Congratulations Paul!
MBD award-
To be eligible for the Master of the Black Dog Certificate, an activator must have entered valid activation logs from each and every summit in the Hanging Hills Region and must have survived all of the activations.
The Black Dog of the Hanging Hills is a supernatural hound that appears in Hanging Hills folklore. Folklore holds that the sp irit has haunted the region since the ear ly 1800s and manifests itself as a small black dog, often gregarious in nature, who leaves no footprints and makes no sound. According to legend, to see the Black Dog the first time results in joy , while a second sighting results in misfortune. Seeing the Black Dog a third time is said to be a death omen.
One of the earliest accounts of the Black Dog was published in the Connecticut Quarterly, (April-June, 1898) by New York geologist W.H.C. Pynchon. According to Pynchon, in February 1891 he and geologist Herbert Marshall of the United States Geological Survey were conducting geologic research in the Hanging Hills when they saw The Dog. Pynchon had seen The Dog once before. Marshall, who had seen The Dog twice, scoffed at the legend. Shortly after the two of them saw The Dog, Marshall slipped on the ice atop one of the cliffs and plunged to his death. His body was later recovered by authorities.
Congratulations again Paul!
73,
Tom Tumino, N2YTF
W1 Area Manager