In a small wooden cabin on Mt. Washington, one caretaker resides alone. This short film introduces us to Jack Kingsley, a young man who cheerfully signed up to live on an isolated, frozen mountainside in New Hampshire.
Mt. Washington, where Kingsley lives in his cabin, sees more than a quarter of a million visitors every year. But it is also known for its extreme weather. Photo: Screenshot
Everything you need, nothing you don’t
Kingsley savors the independence and self-reliance of the caretaker’s life. The camera follows him through his day, gathering snow to melt into water, cleaning and repairing the cabin, and cooking for himself. The life offers, he explains, “everything you need, nothing you don’t.”
This simple life, he says, allows him to appreciate the little things. The peace, as well as the power, of nature.
Kingsley spends much of his time in nature. He’s a passionate ice climber, hiker, and backcountry skier. Few other occupations would give him this much time or opportunity to indulge in his passions. But at the end of the day, his life revolves around the old cabin.
An old dirtbag of a cabin
“If the cabin was a person, it would be a dirtbag,” Kingsley says. “An old dirtbag.”
The old dirtbag was built in 1963 by Harvard undergraduate students. They were members of a mountaineering club without any background in construction, but park rangers agreed to let them build a cabin. Things were different in the 1960s.
Old photographs flicker across the screen as Kingsley describes the building of the cabin, showing the smiling faces of young men many decades before him. Photo: Screenshot
For decades, the cabin and a lone caretaker have acted as a waystation for hikers and climbers on the mountain. It is the nexus of the mountaineering community on Mt. Washington. This means that cold, lost, and hungry strangers might at any moment break the isolation in which Kingsley lives.
“Anyone can walk through that door, and that’s part of the beauty of it,” Kingsley says happily. Rather than isolating, the cabin seems to present an opportunity to connect. With the strangers who pass through, with the history of Mt. Washington mountaineering, and with his own father.
Aged photographs are projected over Kingsley’s voice, showing his father taking a younger Kingsley onto the mountain, where they regularly visited the cabin. His father was a mountaineer and traveler, and the cabin was a special place for him to share with his son. Now, Kingsley explains proudly, he can share the cabin with his father, when he comes to visit.
Kingsley and his father, who he fondly says is also a ‘dirtbag.’ Photo: Screenshot
The job
While he believes that passersby have a right to take risks on the mountain, Kingsley sees his job as making sure they are informed of that risk. And the risk is substantial, he explains. Mt. Washington is only 1,917m but sees hurricane-force winds every three days, with windchill regularly reaching -34˚C. Mountaineers use it to train for attempts on places like Everest and Denali.
It’s essential that weather conditions on the mountain are measured and broadcast. Kingsley helps with that, too. Part of his caretaker duties involves measuring temperature and snowfall for the Parks Service.
Kingsley takes measurements in the snow plot. Photo: Screenshot
It certainly is not a life most would choose. But this casual, intimate portrait of a caretaker challenges the assumptions one might have about people who choose to live in perceived deprivation. Kingsley is not your typical mountain hermit.
