The SRK Greenway is proud to bring a SOLO Wilderness First Aid course on the weekend of January 24-25th, 2026. The Wilderness First Aid Course will be taught in the Curtis Ivey Science Center at the Colby Sawyer College in New London.
The Wilderness First Aid (WFA) is the perfect course for the outdoor enthusiast or trip leader who wants a basic level of first aid training for short trips with family, friends, and outdoor groups. The WFA is 16 hours long (two full days). This course is open to anyone over 16 years old. The total course cost is $225 and includes an on-campus lunch both days.
This 16-hour Wilderness First Aid course provides students with an introductory understanding to wilderness first aid. Hands-on course labs, scenarios and repetition ensure students are engaged and learning for the duration of the course. SOLO courses combine multiple styles of learning to help you learn and remember course information after the course is complete.
The SRK Greenway is excited to bring this class to the community. This is a great program for anyone who regularly enjoys the outdoors and would like a strong foundation in basic first aid.
On October 3, 2025, the Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway Coalition lost one of its founding fathers, Dan H. Allen. Dan was 93 years old and was a resident of New London , NH, at the time of his death. Please see his full obituary posted by the Chadwick Funeral Home: https://www.chadwickfuneralservice.com/obituary/dan-allen.
The Sunapee Ragged Kearsarge Greenway community fondly remembers Dan H. Allen, one of our founding members and a guiding force behind the creation and stewardship of the 75-mile Greenway loop that connects our region’s beloved mountains and towns.
Dan passed away on October 3, 2025, at the age of 93, leaving behind an extraordinary legacy of adventure, leadership, and love for the outdoors. A resident of New London since 1957, Dan helped shape the SRKG from its earliest days—working with other pioneers like Bill Best and Dick Martin to map, clear, and ultimately walk the first full Greenway circuit in 1994. That inaugural “walkabout,” four days of steady drizzle and muddy miles, set the tone for the trail’s enduring spirit of resilience and camaraderie.
Dan’s hiking résumé was legendary. He climbed all 49 of New Hampshire’s 4,000-foot peaks in winter twice and a half. He also became one of the first to have completed a winter Appalachian Trail thru-hike, which he did in sections over 10-years finishing his journey in March 2001. At 67, he hiked Denali, reaching the high camp.
Despite these achievements, Dan’s heart remained rooted here at home. As longtime SRK Greenway Board Chair, he was a quiet but steady leader who helped guide trail development, land stewardship, and community engagement. He understood that a trail is more than a path—it’s a part of the community that connects people to nature and to each other.
There will be a service and memorial gathering on Saturday, October 25, 11:00 am, at the New London Historical Society.
So typical of Dan’s generosity were his wishes: “In lieu of flowers, please consider volunteering to serve your community in some capacity, or contributing to the Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway Coalition (SRKG.org).” The SRK Greenway thanks Dan for his years of service and for his passion for the outdoors. The SRK thanks Dan’s family for sharing him with us for so many years.
To help celebrate his life we are publishing again the SRK Profile about Dan, published in our Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge-Greenway Coalition Newsletter #106, Fall 2020 edition. We miss you, “Old Swampy.”
SRK Greenway Profile Dan H. Allen Trail name: “Old Swampy”
Dan Allen was born in Newtonville, Massachusetts. As is true for many who are passionate about the great outdoors, Dan was introduced early to hiking and camping by family members. When Dan was 6 and his brother was 4 their parents took them for their first overnight hiking and camping trip to the old shelter in Bowman, NH, the Randolph Mountain Club’s log cabin. Other family members also mentored Dan’s love of the mountains and hiking. When Dan was about 11 years old his grandfather took him on a hike from Crawford Notch, with an overnight stay at the Lake of the Clouds Hut, then over Mt. Washington and back down via the Davis Path. This was Dan’s first trip to Mt. Washington and his grandfather’s last. This hike whetted Dan’s love of hiking in the White Mountains.
In the 1970’s-1980’s Dan led many Appalachian Mt. Club winter hikes up the NH 4000 footers. Dan’s first winter hike was on 11-22-86 and last was on 3-10-04. Dan was the first person to hike the entire Appalachian Trail in the winter – a feat which actually stretched over 10 winters, and included bailing out seven times for various different reasons. Dan did at least a third of his AT hikes alone. Dan started his winter AT hike on 2-9-90 at Mt. Katahdin; he finished this feat on 3-10-01 in Georgia, when he was 68 years old. Consider the following about this feat: Most of his winter hiking on the Vermont, NH, and Maine portions of the AT was done in 4’ of snow, breaking trail, since very little of the AT trail had been used by any other hikers. In the winter there was no trodden path to follow, thus finding the trail and blazes or trail corridors was indeed challenging! One can learn much from Dan’s book about hiking, “Don’t Die on the Mountain.”
Another particularly memorable outdoor experience for Dan occurred in 1955 shortly after he had graduated from college and had headed west to expand his hiking horizons. While camping in the Jenny Lake Campground in the Tetons, Dan paired up with a Texan climber who was awaiting the arrival of other climbers. The other climbers never appeared. After some practice climbs together, Dan and the Texan climbed the Grand Teton, negotiating a 70’ long horizontal crack on the upper west side of the summit, a crack just wide enough for one’s torso and one leg. That face of the Grand Teton is nearly vertical and the wind was stiff. Thus Dan and his partner had to rely on non-verbal communication (tugs on the rope) for much of this “most memorable” climb. Another memorable mountaineering trip was reaching 17,000 feet on Mt. Denali in 2000.
Dan Allen moved to New London, NH in late 1957 after completing his military obligation. Dan became one of the earliest members of the Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway (SRKG) coalition, and served as its first Board chairperson for three years. Dan’s vision for the SRKG was to create and maintain the 75 miles of trails that now link our area mountains – Sunapee, Ragged, and Kearsarge. Dan and other early Board members were instrumental and successful in promoting some land conservation around the area lakes, particularly around Lake Sunapee and Pleasant Lake. Dan still wishes that all of the SRK trails could be in the woods and off roadways. He also believes that climate change is our biggest threat to current and future outdoor activity.
Dan also has been very active with the New London Conservation Commission. It seems that Dan likes to do things in the winter: Perhaps most memorable of his many NL Conservation Commission projects was planning and building, with others, the many bridges near Clark Pond, and hauling much of the building materials to the bridge sites via snowmobile and trailer in the winters.
Dan, we thank you for your years of labor on so many trails in NH, and for your land preservation work. We thank you for helping to create and maintain our SRKG trails, manifestation of the “green necklace,” for generations to come. Outdoor activity indeed is a salvation for many of us during this COVID pandemic. We are deeply grateful to you and grateful for your vision.
