The Winter 2024 Fireside Chat lineup

Mark your calendars for Philip Carcia’s New Years weekend talk on 12/30/23, a sunrise hike on 12/31/23, and the famous Notch New Year’s Eve party on 12/31/23! See below for the rest of the lineup. If you plan to stay overnight, book your stay NOW to ensure you get a spot for these epic weekends. Event registration links with more details coming soon.

12/16: Declan Kiley is a hiker and runner based in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. He got his start hiking as a guest at the Notch Hostel in the Fall of 2019 and spent the following winter working-for-stay at the Notch. In a single winter season he hiked three full rounds of the New Hampshire 48, a feat previously accomplished by only two individuals. Declan will open the season with the story of his coming-of-age in the White Mountains.

12/30: Philip “Finding Philip” Carcia has hiked 9,000 miles in the White Mountain National Forest over the past five years. Most famously, he has completed the Single Year Grid, the Single Season White Mountains Guide, the Direttissima Yo-Yo, and the Winter Calendar Day Presi/Pemi. Topic TBD.

2/3: Lyla “Sugar” Harrod will detail her 2023 thru-hike of the Continental Divide Trail, including her perspectives as a sober, queer, trans woman. Lyla just became the first openly transexual woman to complete the Triple Crown of Thru-Hiking (AT, PCT, CDT), and has also thru-hiked the Hayduke Trail, the Arizona Trail, and the Bay Circuit Trail.

3/9: Will Robinson is a hiker, runner, and long distance endurance athlete who recently became the first person to connect all 115 4,000-foot mountains in the Northeast entirely on foot; a thru-hike of the Northeast 115. In total, 1,300 miles and over a quarter million feet of elevation gain. Will will detail what it was like to walk from the Catskills, to the Adirondacks, to the Greens Mountains, to the White Mountains, and all the way up to Mount Katahdin in Maine.

To attend

Doors open at 6 pm and the presentations run from 7:30 to 8:30 pm followed by Q&A ’til 9 pm. To attend in person:

1) Book a stay at the Notch on the night of the presentation, park in the main lot, and arrive by 7 pm

2) Show up anytime after the doors open to the public at 6pm. Bring a meal to share for the 6-7pm potluck dinner. VERY IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are NOT a guest at the Notch, you must park on Lost Valley Road (not Lost River Road!!!) behind the hostel’s picket fence and walk through the backyard. In the event of a snowstorm, no street parking is allowed so members of the public may need to walk or shuttle in from town.

`Note: If our overnight accommodations fill up, please don't let that deter you from joining us for dinner and the presentation. These talks are open to the public. There are other local hostels like the Barn Door Hostel in Rumney, or the Coho Hostel over in Conway, that still have space.`

More about the Fireside Chats/Sunrise Hike Series

In December of 2018, The Notch launched a new in-house winter lecture series featuring local and regional outdoor enthusiasts with a compelling story to tell.

We named this series “Fireside Chats” and our aim was to provide an intimate space (the Notch Hostel living room) where community members can gather to hear inspiring mountain-based stories from the people who lived them.

The morning after each Fireside Chat of the season, Philip “Finding Philip” Carcia leads a group sunrise hike of a NH 4000-footer, which anyone is welcome to join. The hikes are unguided; participants must have prior experience hiking 4000’ers in winter and be prepared to hike solo if needed.