Quinn the girl…..at Guyot.

Guyot is the most rugged and remote campsite in the AMC fleet. The most direct route is over 7 miles into the heart of the Pemi, along the Twinway and across the summits of Zeacliff, Zealand, and Guyot itself. The more challenging way is via Bondcliff and Bond, or across the Twins. Guyot Campsite was most recently profiled in AMC Outdoors.

This summer, Guyot has been stewarded by Quinn Nichols, a self-described ‘small-towner New Hampshirite.’ Quinn was one of my first new-caretaker interviews this past winter and was offered a position almost immediately. Funnily enough, she didn’t immediately accept the position and when time went by too long she thought it was too late. We reached out, corrected that misassumption, and brought Quinn into the caretaker fold.

Each caretaker has the ability to bring the full breadth of their unique individuality to the position. That said, we do have job requirements and expectations, the quantitative hard skills of trail work, campsite maintenance, and composting, as well as the qualitative skills of visitor education and outreach. The unique expression of self comes about in the way a caretaker makes the most of their time in the field, and how they share that experience with others. As I’ve shared before, that comes in the form of photos, essays, raps, and even gingerbread houses.

This week I decided to showcase Quinn and her creativity, as she has been chronicling her experiences in her blog, called Quinn the Girl. Why ‘the girl’? Because when she was growing up there was another Quinn in school, and he became known as Quinn the Boy. Learning this lowered my gender inequity hackles. It is a blog she started to chronicle her personal journeys for her fans at home, who are friends and family, and I love it for the personal touch. And, as such, she wants everyone to know that it does not represent the views of AMC but her personal adventures.

Guyot is a challenging site, it is the highest-use site and also inadequately sized in terms of platform space. It is hard to get to, and people often arrive tired and dehydrated. The remoteness also means the Guyot caretaker is fairly isolated from roads and other AMC staff. So when I read the title of Quinn’s most recent post, about bringing the childish spirit and the joy of play into your life, I confirmed what I had suspected about Quinn all along: her gift to the world is laughter.

And, as further proof, just before I posted this, Quinn came through our Trails office after her stint in the woods. She mentioned that there were 91 people at Guyot on Labor Day weekend, and she was still laughing.