![Laura and Guy Waterman are pictured here on the Franconia Ridge in New England's Presidential Range during the mid-1980s, when they were very involved with trail work under the Appalachian Mountain Club's adopt-a-trail program. We and some of our trail work friends had recently placed those rocks at the head of Walker Ravine in an attempt to reinforce the drainage and stabilize the trail, she told Alpinist. [Photo] Waterman family collection](https://dev.alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/mountain-steward-1-930x620.jpg)
On Becoming a Mountain Steward
In this unabridged version of a Climbing Life story from Alpinist 61, Laura Waterman retraces the path and climbs that inspired her to become involved in conservation work with her husband, Guy Waterman, in New England’s Presidential Range during the 1970s. Laura Waterman outlines the environmental challenges the area has faced in the past and now faces again in the form of a new hotel that is being proposed by the Cog Railway near the summit of Mt. Washington (Agiocochook).