Have you heard the news?! The US Postal Service is thinking about closing the only post office in the White Mountains. In fact they may have already done so. There are many closures taking place with the Postal Service because of the turbulent economy. You know it’s bad when the mail can’t run. This post office is located in the White Mountains. That area is one of the prettiest and hardest to hike on the whole trail. The post office in the spot light is located in a village.

The village of Glencliff, New Hampshire, this post office is the only one in the whites that is accessible to the Appalachian Trail. AT hikers use this post office quite extensively for mail drops. Once north bound hikers reach this point they are more than half way through the trail and will need to pick up supplies and mail items home they no longer need. They do this via mail drops, the post office there in Glencliff is very important to the AT and its hikers.

According to the US Postal Service’s website the post office in Manchester, NH, is being absorbed into the Northern New England District Office, in Portland. (Formerly named the Maine District Office) That means there will be no more mail drops in the Whites. And it means that hikers will have to find some alternative to getting items they need and need to mail home on this area of the trail. There is however hiker hostels in the area where a hiker can sometimes have mail drops sent and items mailed off.

The potential problem there though is that most hostels do not want to deal with the added responsibility of guarding hiker’s mail so some hostels opt out of that service. We can only hope that the US Postal Service thinks about the impact that closing this office will have on the Appalachian Trail community. If you want to help there is a phone number that you can call, it will connect you to the Mid-American US Postal Office located in Kansas City, Missouri. You will get to talk their human resources department.

You can call them and tell them what you feel about closing this office and how it will impact the trail and you as well as how important that the post office is there. Being such a small community, Glencliff, the Postal Service may not know just how important that post office is. Every year thousands of hikers use their services for mailing and mail drops pick-up. Call this number to the Mid-America office: M-F before 5pm 816-374-9194.