The Geologic History and Legacy of the Old Man of the Mountain (In-person)
Fall (4-8 hours) | This course is completed
On May 3, 2003, the Old Man of The Mountain collapsed and fell into Franconia Notch, resulting in the loss of an important national landmark and the official emblem of the State of New Hampshire. This natural event ended an often sublime, nearly 200-year relationship between the people of New England and the “Old Man”, a relationship characterized by remarkable human effort to understand how it formed, the mechanism of its stability, ways to secure and preserve it, and how to embrace the humanistic and philosophical significance of its natural, but utterly “human” profile.
These three slide and media-illustrated presentations review and discuss the Old Man’s geologic and more than 200 years of human history. They are together a legacy that’s truly meaningful now that the spirit of his timelessly reassuring steadiness on the mountainside is gone.
- Study Leader will provide online reading materials.
Brian Fowler
Brian Fowler is a semi-retired consulting engineering and structural geologist. He has authored more than 20 peer-reviewed geologic maps and professional articles with several on the rock mechanics of the Old Man of The Mountain. He is the current President of the Old Man of The Mountain Legacy Fund, Inc., is a Past-President and Life Trustee of the Mount Washington Observatory and is a 50+ year member of both the Appalachian Mountain and America Alpine Clubs.