mount washington | Richard Nilsen

Part 2: In which certain suggestions are made

Kancamagus Highway

One of the best ways to see the wild parts of New England is via the Kancamagus Highway, which runs between Lincoln and Conway, N.H. Along its 35 miles, you pass white-water rivers, towering granite and long views from the mountain passes.

The road, which was opened only in 1968, climbs from the Pemigewasset River to Kancamagus Pass, crossing the crest at 2,850 feet and following the Swift River down the other side.

Rocky Gorge on the Swift River

Near the Bear Notch Road turnoff is the Passaconaway Historic Site, with a nature center and summer demonstrations by craft workers in period costume. In the Rocky Gorge Scenic Area are waterfalls, hiking paths and camping in the Covered Bridge Campground.

But it isn’t the only road worth taking. The road up Mount Washington is a thrill ride of declivities and chasms, bound together with the coil of roadway.

To be sure, there are three choices for getting up Mount Washington.

Appalachian Trail, Presidential Range

The first is to climb on foot; the Appalachian Trail winds up the rocky slopes, but it is probably too strenuous for most visitors.

Mt. Washington Auto Road, with cog railway tracks in foreground.

The second choice is to drive up the Mount Washington Auto Road, opened in 1861. It is a harem-scarem eight-mile drive that averages 12 percent grades and snakes around hairpin turns, and when you get back down, you probably will buy the popular bumper sticker that reads ”I survived the Mt. Washington Auto Road.”

The easiest way up is the Mount Washington Cog Railway, which climbs the other side of the mountain from Crawford Notch. The 3 1/2-mile trip, which climbs grades up to 37 percent, takes a little longer, but is great fun.

Both road and rail have what may seem ”steep” admission prices.

The New England states are small, but each offers something for the traveler.

In Vermont, the countryside itself is reason to visit, and just about anywhere you go is scenic, though more gentle than New Hampshire. Popular tourist stops include Queechee Gorge, Woodstock and Weston, all of which are filled with places to separate the tourist from his money.

Ben and Jerry factory

For some people, the most magnetic draw of the state will be Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream Factory in Waterbury, with half-hour tours and samples. It is now the No. 1 tourist attraction in the state.

The Massachusetts portion of the Appalachians highlights Mount Greylock and the Berkshires. But there is also historic Stockbridge and its Norman Rockwell Museum — and, if you can find it, the former Alice’s Restaurant.

Arrowhead

Author Herman Melville wrote several short stories about the Berkshire Mountains, and you can visit his home, Arrowhead, in Pittsfield, where his notorious “piazza” on the north side of his home, looks out on Mt. Greylock — “Charlemagne among his peers.”

And in Maine, Baxter State Park is a treasure. A few nights in a wood-heated cabin beside Daicey Pond, under the shadow of Mount Katahdin, will fix what ails you and set the universe right.

Reich Museum

But if that doesn’t work, try the Wilhelm Reich Museum, in Rangely, which its tenant called his ”Orgone Energy Observatory.” In a nutshell, so to speak, Reich believed that you could use great sex to make it rain.

NEXT: Cool Calvin Coolidge

Part 1: Bad weather and Longinus

Mt. Washington

It is not at all unusual to drive past the most imposing mountains in the East and not even see them.

The White Mountains of New Hampshire may not be taller than those in the Smokies down South, but because they are so much farther north, their tops bust through the tree line and leave their summits raw with rock. They are craggy and wild.

Between Mt. Washington and Mt. Clay

But the weather can hide them in swirling mists and all you see is a whitish, nebulous screen blotting out the roadsides as you drive past.

The northern Appalachians strive to reach the Whites, beginning with the low Litchfield Hills in Connecticut that grow into the Berkshires in Massachusetts and the Green Mountains of Vermont. The White Mountains cap this part of the cordillera, climaxed with the Presidential Range in northern New Hampshire and its imposing Mount Washington, which, at 6,288 feet, is the highest peak in the Northeast.

It is an impressive sight, if you are lucky enough to see it.

But Mount Washington’s other claim to fame is that it suffers the worst weather in the world outside the polar regions — at least the worst weather reported by an official weather station.

On April 12, 1934, the wind spat across the top of the mountain at 231 mph, the highest wind speed ever recorded on this planet. That’s about a third the velocity of a shotgun blast. Winds in excess of 100 mph are not uncommon, and there are fog and mist at the summit at least part of 300 days every year.

The building at the summit has to be held down with guy wires.

And then there are the snow and ice. Most of the annual 70 inches of precipitation comes in the form of snow. But this whiteout isn’t unique to Mount Washington. Other mountains also hide in the clouds.

When Henry David Thoreau climbed Mount Katahdin, which rises 5,267 feet above sea level in Maine, he faced more winds and mist.

”It was like sitting in a chimney and waiting for the smoke to blow away,” he wrote in his book The Maine Woods. ”It was, in fact, a cloud factory.

”Occasionally, when the windy columns broke in to me, I caught sight of a dark, damp crag to the right or left, the mist driving ceaselessly between it and me. It reminded me of the creations of the old epic and dramatic poets, of Atlas, Vulcan, the Cyclops, and Prometheus. Such was Caucasus and the rock where Prometheus was bound.”

“Crawford Notch” by Thomas Cole

One can see the weather in the painting by the great 19th-century American artist Thomas Cole, whose Crawford Notch captures the mizzly scene: A mountain on the left is obscured in scud; on the right, sunlight glows from the opposing crest. At the bottom of the valley, a horseman heads for a log cabin.

The painting, at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., looks as wild and Romantic as it sounds. You certainly don’t believe for a moment that Cole has not exaggerated the effect to make a more dramatic painting. But I’ve driven through Crawford Notch, a valley just south of Mount Washington, and seen the same blowing clouds, sweeping from the peaks on my left to those on my right.

The northerly end of the Appalachians is less populated than the southern or central parts. There are more animals, and it is not that unusual to see moose wandering the roadsides. Loons swim in the lakes, and black bears rummage through the woody underbrush.

Lake Ambejejus, Maine

As the mountains hunker down again north of the Whites, their loss of altitude is made up for in the profusion of lakes. Western Maine is as wet as Minnesota, and as good for canoeing. The lakes have long, difficult Indian names, such as Mooselookmegunticook, Apmogenegamook, Nesowadnehunk and Ambajejus. Such names are a linguistic wilderness all their own.

Mt. Katahdin

But in Baxter State Park, the land rises high once again, reaching its peak at Katahdin, a monadnock, or mountain remaining after erosion has washed away the rest of the range. Katahdin can be seen from Interstate 95, 30 miles away, rising above the green-treed plain.

At least, when the weather is clear.

NEXT: Kancamagus Highway

—Richard Nilsen

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Northern Appalachians: On the Road

Northern Appalachians