The pinnacle for a peak: Commission sets sights on UNESCO recognition for Mount Washington

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Egypt’s Great Pyramids, Arizona’s Grand Canyon … and New Hampshire’s own Mount Washington?

At their April meeting, the group of institutions that steward the Northeast’s tallest mountain voted, 9-1, to take a preliminary step toward pursuing UNESCO World Heritage Site designation for the peak. The process may take years to decades, but if it is successful, Mount Washington could become the first site in New England to rank on the internationally recognized list. 

The possibility requires unique considerations, commission members said, including the need it would create to manage increased visitation that is already straining the summit’s alpine ecosystem and infrastructure. Commission member Howie Wemyss, the sole “no” vote, said he objected over concern about the mountain’s ability to bear more traffic. The commission has also yet to settle on a plan to engage with the region’s Indigenous people on the topic. 

The process will be long and complicated, said Mount Washington Commission Chair Rob Kirsch. But he believes the designation would be a boon for the mountain, bringing in not only more visitors but also more funding to invest in making the peak more resilient to traffic. Kirsch said he sees the application as a chance to showcase the wonder of Mount Washington at a grander scale.

“It will lead to an improved experience for people, generally,” Kirsch said. “It will give the state something to really be proud of.”

A high-impact list

The World Heritage Site list is the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization’s, or UNESCO’s, influential database of places around the world that it says have “outstanding universal value to humanity.” 

As of April 28, the list contains 1,248 sites across 170 nations. Twenty-six are located in the United States, including the Grand Canyon and multiple other national parks, the Taos Pueblo adobe settlements, and Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were signed. 

A property must meet at least one of 10 criteria to be considered for World Heritage Site status, according to UNESCO. A site may apply, for example, if it hosts “a masterpiece of human creative genius” or if it is associated with ideas, art, or literary works of “outstanding universal significance.” An “outstanding example of a traditional human settlement” may be eligible, as could a site that bears “unique or at least exceptional” evidence of a cultural tradition or unique way of life. Areas that contain the “most important” natural habitats for threatened species, or that boast exceptional scientific value, may be eligible, too; the list goes on.

Mount Washington could invoke several categories in its application, including one for sites that “contain superlative natural phenomena or areas of exceptional natural beauty and aesthetic importance.”

There are many steps before Mount Washington could potentially be added to that list. The motion approved at the April 17 meeting of the Mount Washington Commission was the first: At that meeting, the commission approved pursuing “Tentative List” status for the mountain. One site is selected from that national list each year for submission to the United Nations World Heritage Committee. There are currently 17 sites on the U.S. Tentative List.

To move ahead, the application must receive support from the federal government. The commission has engaged with federal officials, and U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen has been supportive of the project, commission members said. In fact, they said, the idea originally came from Shaheen’s office.

“Mount Washington’s unique natural environment, scientific significance and rich history deserve global recognition,” Shaheen said in a statement to the Bulletin. “I am proud to support the Commission as they work to have our region’s most iconic peak designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.” 

From here, Kirsch said, the process may take decades.

The price of popularity

UNESCO designation typically boosts visitorship to a site, and proponents generally point to the associated regional economic boost as a benefit of the status. “World Heritage Sites attract international tourists and scientists. Communities can benefit in many ways if they provide amenities,” reads a U.S. Fish and Wildlife page on the application for Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp. 

But the list has also been criticized as contributing to overtourism that can degrade sites or harm the communities around them. While it can boost public awareness of a place, there is no funding attached to the status itself.

Rep. David Paige, a Democrat from Conway, made the motion to pursue “tentative list” status for the mountain. He said he did so because Mount Washington needs to find new ways to access funding and because UNESCO status would boost the feeling of pride that New Hampshire residents have in the peak.

“What we have to contend with here is this is an extremely challenging site to maintain. … I think it will open doors to additional possibilities for funding that could help us with the preservation and improvements that are really needed up there,” he said.

The Mount Washington Commission is guided by a 2022 master plan for the mountain’s stewardship and conservation. In November 2025, the commission reviewed preliminary results from an assessment conducted as part of that plan, showing that crowds and climate change were large factors in the strain on the summit’s delicate natural environment and aging infrastructure.

With significant investment, the summit could readily accommodate significant crowds, said Kirsch, who is also an environmental lawyer, former weather observer at the Mount Washington Observatory, and a member of the observatory’s board of trustees. It’s not clear yet where the money for those investments will come from, but Kirsch said he hoped the UNESCO designation would help. 

“You can bring as many people as you want to Mount Washington as long as you make sufficient infrastructure investment to protect the environment,” he said.

Wemyss was less confident. He interpreted the master plan, he said, to mean that environmental protection should take precedence over boosting visitation, and said he wanted the commission to focus on stewardship before directing efforts to the pursuit of UNESCO status.

Wemyss has worked on Mount Washington for decades. (He and Kirsch first met in the 1970s, when Kirsch was at the observatory and Wemyss was leading tours on the Auto Road.) The commission is still waiting for more results from the summit’s environmental assessment, but Wemyss said he was concerned by his own observations of environmental degradation at the peak.

“You can’t continue to bring more and more people to a very small piece of real estate and not expect to have degradation of some sort,” he said. 

However, having formerly worked as general manager of the Mount Washington Auto Road for three decades, Wemyss said he also understood that the businesses operating on Mount Washington would benefit from UNESCO designation. The for-profit Auto Road and Mount Washington Cog Railway each have a representative on the commission; Wemyss once held this role for the Auto Road, though since his retirement he now represents the public.   

More from this section

Costs of long-term care and senior living in New Hampshire

Movies and TV shows casting in Portsmouth

New Hampshire Has 12th Lowest Hazardous Materials Transport Incident Rate in U.S.

“I understand the conundrum of the for-profit entities wanting to make more money, sell more stuff, sell more tickets, get more people to the summit of the mountain,” he said. “I understand that, but … I’m leery of doing that without proper controls or protections in place to take care of the mountain.”

Kirsch said the boost to visitation would not affect the environment if the commission adheres to the guidelines laid out in the Master Plan. Rather, he said, the investments he hopes designation would help secure could help prevent any danger from overcrowding and ensure the mountain’s environment is protected.

He added that the benefit of UNESCO designation would go beyond the businesses operating on the mountain — which include the Mount Washington Auto Road and the Mount Washington Cog Railway — to boost others throughout the North Country. 

“The whole North Country, Coös County, probably to the adjoining Maine and Vermont counties will all benefit if we get more international visitors,” Kirsch said. 

Does the peak have what it takes?

Another unknown in the process is whether the international committee will see fit to rank Mount Washington among other wonders of the world.

Kirsch and Paige said the peak’s singularity was undeniable.

The mountain’s history is rich, Kirsch said. The Mount Washington Cog Railway was the first mountain-climbing cog railway in the world; the modern global banking system is the product of a convention that brought delegates from 44 nations to the Bretton Woods Mount Washington Hotel, at the foot of the mountain, in 1944. The Mount Washington Auto Road had “many firsts” used in its construction, Kirsch said, and there is also the famed Mount Washington Observatory, where a 231-mph gust in 1934 set a record that would stand for more than 60 years for the fastest wind speed ever recorded on Earth.

There’s also the pure beauty of the 6,288-foot mountain’s crags, glacial gulfs, and tumbling evergreen forests. 

“It really is, in my opinion, a global treasure,” said Paige. “… The natural wonder and the historic resources are really one of a kind. So I think it’s deserving.”

Knowledge gaps and federal uncertainty

A missing piece of the puzzle at the commission is information about how Indigenous groups with ties to Mount Washington feel about the possibility and use of the site. The Mount Washington Commission does not have a thorough understanding of the cultural importance of the mountain and its precolonial history, Kirsch said. 

UNESCO calls for Indigenous people with ties to a site to be involved in the selection of sites before they are placed on a nation’s Tentative List, and for them to be engaged “in good faith” in the process of a site’s application. States should obtain “free, prior, and informed” consent from institutions representing Indigenous groups before moving ahead, their website states. 

Kirsch said the commission has been engaged for multiple years in discussions about how to incorporate Indigenous perspective in their general operations. He pointed to the Mount Washington Master Plan, which among dozens of action items directs the commission to research the summit’s significance to Indigenous people and incorporate “features sensitive to such significance” into future updates at the summit.

But the commission has stumbled in its efforts to identify who to consult on this topic, Kirsch said. While multiple groups of Indigenous people inhabit and have traditional claim to the land within New Hampshire’s borders, no group in the state is currently recognized by the state or federal government.

“In this particular corner of New Hampshire, it’s very difficult to determine who has the right to speak for Indigenous people,” said Paige. 

Kirsch said the commission’s current plan was to consult with representatives of Odanak First Nation, an Abenaki First Nation recognized by the Canadian government whose historic homeland stretched through New Hampshire and Vermont and some of whose members currently live in those states.

A representative of Odanak First Nation did not immediately respond to an inquiry from the Bulletin to whether they had been in communication with the Mount Washington Commission.

Meanwhile, Kirsch said, there is also uncertainty about whether the tenuous relationship between President Donald Trump’s administration and the United Nations would complicate an application for UNESCO recognition. Trump has ordered the withdrawal of the U.S. from dozens of United Nations organizations that he said undermined America’s independence, such as the World Health Organization and the United Nations Human Rights Council.

But for now, Kirsch said, it seems the connections the nation needs to continue adding sites to the World Heritage Site list remain intact. And though Shaheen is not seeking reelection, Kirsch said he was confident that other legislators see the value of Mount Washington and would support the application going forward.

The process will involve learning, stakeholder engagement, and conversations, Paige said.

“There’s a lot of due diligence to follow,” he said. “… This is the beginning of a process which, at any time, we may determine, you know, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. I’m hopeful it is.”

Kirsch said he’s aware the application process before the commission is long. If it stretches on like applications have for other American sites, he joked, he may be in his 90s by the time the mountain is recognized. But he has high hopes for the positive effects that working on the application could have in the meantime.

“Mount Washington has given me more in my life than I could really refer to,” he said. The process of discussing UNESCO designation has already boosted pride and collaboration among mountain entities, Kirsch said. And even if designation is never awarded to the mountain, he believes the process will continue to generate rewards. 

“I feel so fortunate,” he said. “… I’m thrilled at this prospect, and thrilled at the ability that it has to bring lots of entities together to concentrate on something positive.”