Mike Cherim has loved hiking for as long as he can remember. He started early, ascending mountains in a pack on his father’s back until he was big enough to hike on his own. After a stint in the U.S. Air Force as an electrician working on F-16s – including three years in Italy – and a first career in southern New Hampshire, Mike moved to North Conway. Six years ago, he founded Redline Guiding, setting up shop in the hub of the Mount Washington Valley’s busy outdoors scene. He and a cadre of other experienced and dedicated guides now lead folks to high mountain summits. Even when he’s not at work guiding clients, or volunteering with the Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue team, Mike is often on the trail – just for the fun of it.
New Hampshire has always been homebase, but I was a military brat, so before high school we moved around a lot. I lived in Japan for four years, and various places throughout the United States. My parents always loved New Hampshire, and they wanted to settle here, so when my father got out of the service, we moved to Nottingham.
My parents hiked, so I got into hiking at a very young age. I was basically born into the sport. As much time as possible, I was outside. At 1 year old I was on my dad’s back hiking. At 2 years old I was in my dad’s backpack climbing Mount Washington. At 4 years old, I was climbing Mount Washington on my own two legs. The driving force there was my mom. She had this thing about Mount Washington.
My parents used to come up here and we’d rent a cabin in Glen Junction. I just always liked this area. I live in North Conway and have been here about 10 years. I always wanted to live somewhere between the North Conway village and Glen Junction. And now I live between those two points.
Before I moved up here, I went through a divorce. I had an opportunity to do things over. I was hiking a lot at the time, and I decided I would be a hiking guide. I went to a well-known outfitter here, and said I’d like to be a hiking guide, and they laughed and said there’s no such thing as hiking guides. I know how to rock climb, and I know how to ice climb, but I didn’t want to be a climbing guide. I wanted to be a hiking guide. For about five years I did some training. I became a Class 1 AMC leader, got medical credentials, avalanche credentials. When I moved up here, I worked with another local guide company for about three years, then went out on my own.
Guiding hikes has been a staple in this area way back to the Crawford family in Crawford Notch, who were leading people up Mount Washington in the 1800s. Often, our guests have an objective. We get asked to do Mount Washington probably more than anything. It’s the tallest mountain in the Northeast. It has the nastiest reputation. Some people are working on their 48 [peaks over 4,000 feet in New Hampshire], so they hire us to help do some of the longer ones.
If you look at any of the maps that serve this area, the trails are all denoted as red lines, and we guide on those lines. So “Redline Guiding” seemed like a natural fit. The name also comes partly from the hiking practice called redlining, where you hike every trail in the Appalachian Mountain Club’s (AMC) White Mountain Guide Book. I’ve redlined the 29th edition of the book. It took me about three years to finish.
I’m the type of person, if I’m driving down the road and see a trail sign, I want to know where that goes. I enjoy putting the whole puzzle together. The trails in the 29th edition total about 1,440 miles. But if you have a trail that goes from the trailhead on the road to a waterfall on the other end, that mileage is doubled to get there and back. If you have a loop, but it’s bisected by another trail, you don’t do that without repeating a bunch of stuff. So I don’t know how many miles it ended up being, or how much elevation gain. It’s infinitely variable – there are so many ways you can do it. It’s really fun. It’s a very rewarding thing.
The world is your oyster, as they say. You wake up that day and you can do something big, you can do something small, vertical or flat – you have all these choices, and all this world to explore. The last 10 percent or so of redlining – or completing any hiking list – becomes more demanding. Of course, you want your finishing trail to be special. I picked Rainbow Trail, which is often cited as the prettiest trail in the White Mountains. I don’t know if that’s true, but it was gorgeous.
All of our guides get excited about hiking. It’s fun. On Saturday, one of our guides, Phoebe Seltzer, did back-to-back Washington summits. She met the first group, two teenagers, at 4:30 in the morning and took them up to the summit of Washington. They were down by 10:30. At 10:45 she was hiking another couple up Washington, taking the Glen Boulder Trail up over the Boott Spur, because that way is more scenic and they wouldn’t run into as many people. Another guide, Arlette Laan, just completed the Ice Age Trail through Wisconsin, which is one of the National Scenic Trails. Those include the Pacific Crest Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the Appalachian Trail. There are 11 of them in the United States, and she’s the first woman to hike them all.
I haven’t done any of the National Scenic Trails, but I’ve completed the Long Trail in Vermont, which was 282 miles the way we did it. That was one of the most rewarding, fulfilling things I’ve ever done in my life. I did it with a very good friend of mine, and at the time, neither of us had any commitments at home. All we had to do was get to the trail and stay on a loose schedule. For 21 days, everything that was important to us we carried on our backs. We slept, we ate, we hiked – rinse, repeat. It was 21 days of no adulting. I loved that. It was so free.
I’ve completed New Hampshire’s 48 4,000-footers multiple times – including during the winter – the 52 With a View list, the Terrifying 25 list. I still have some mountains to do on the New England 100 Highest. It’s a matter of time and priorities. I like just going out and hiking. Having a list is nice. I’m pro-lists. I think it gets people to do things they wouldn’t normally do, and it helps get people spread out a little bit more on the mountains. Dispersal is really important. Too much congestion in certain areas is really, really serious.
We offer a number of classes: map and compass, digital navigation, hiking intro, camp craft, river crossing skills – different things that people can take to become better hikers. We’re a hiking company that offers some other skills. I also became a justice of the peace so I could do weddings in the mountains. I’ve probably done 75 or 80 weddings. I’ll do weddings anywhere. Most of the weddings I do don’t involve big hikes, although I’ve done weddings on Bondcliff, South Twin, and Washington.
I love being outside. When I’m on the trail, I feel good. That’s the best way to put it. When I’m hiking, I can think. I don’t have the distractions of life. I’m not looking at electronics. I’m not sitting somewhere. I’m moving, I’m exercising. My heart is going, my lungs are going. I feel good. Sometimes it hurts; you have to push a little bit. But then I have the reward of getting up there. Something I learned a long time ago is to look up. You see the sky between the trees, the leaves rustling, the sun beating down on the fir cones at the top of a tree. Then you see a couple of birds living their life right there. Maybe I’m weird. But if I’m weird, I’m good with that.
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