Fearsome forest
Panorama showing Mt. Liberty, Mt. Flume, parts of the Pemigewasset Wilderness, and parts of Franconia Notch State Park in the White Mountains.
“New Hampshire is one big forest. So apart from the very occasional town or ski resort, New Hampshire is primarily, sometimes dauntingly, wilderness. And its hills are loftier, craggier, more difficult and forbidding than Vermont’s.’’
— From A Walk in the Woods (1998), by Bill Bryson, about hiking up the Appachian Trail.
Summer in the mountains
On the Franconia Ridge, a section of the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains.
— Photo by Paulbalegend
Adapted from Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
New Englanders tend to think more about heading toward the crowded seashore than to the mountains in the summer. I prefer the latter.
While I probably shouldn’t do it now (heart disease), I loved climbing in the White Mountains. They aren’t very high as mountains go – the highest, Mt. Washington, rises to only 6,288 feet above sea level -- but they have grandeur, in part because they have above-the-tree-line acreage, which affords climbers great views, though I read that with global warming the tree line is rising. And in the quasi-tundra above 4,500 feet, there are interesting plants, including delicate flowers otherwise only found in the Arctic.
Another joy of climbing is the camaraderie of fellow climbers, always happy to chat and provide advice: “That way is easier”. “Incredible views around that huge boulder.” “Watch out! It’s slippery!’’ “See the eagle!” And if you use the Appalachian Mountain Club’s “huts’’ to stop and have lunch or spend the night, you might strike up friendships with fellow hikers, many of whom come from far away. Some even bring along a bottle of wine to add to the festivities; they’re often Quebecois. People usually seem friendlier on mountains, at least in my experience.
You see some pretty strange things up there and not just such phenomena as weirdly and colorfully lit cloud formations.
Black flies are a particular menace in the late spring in northern New England. Years ago, a friend of mine and I spotted an older gent who looked familiar coming along the ridge of the Franconia Range. But the guy we knew had white hair. This man’s was red. Then we discovered that his hair was red from the blood from fly bites.
Also strange is some folks’ ridiculous outfitting, such as those who wear sneakers instead of proper hiking footwear. They usually deeply regret the sneakers, even if they don’t suffer a bad fall or sprained ankle as a result of wearing them.
‘Stormbags’ over the mountains
The Presidential Range of the White Mountains
“Thunderheads were pouring toward them through the ragged teeth of the White Mountains, and Lisey counted seven dark spots where the high slopes had been smudged away by cauls of rain. Brilliant lightnings flashed inside those stormbags and between those two of them, connecting them like some fantastic fairy bridge, was a double rainbow that arched over Mount Cranmore in a frayed loophole of blue.”
— From Lisey’s Story, by the Maine-based novelist Stephen King
“Crawford Notch’’ (1872), in the White Mountains, by Thomas Hill (1829-1908)
Diner breakfast, then ski
“When I go skiing in New England, I usually wake up early and drive up to Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine to make it in time for chairlift opening. That means leaving early and getting breakfast at one of the little quaint diners up in the mountains.’’
Sunita Williams (born 1965), American astronaut and U.S. Navy officer who grew up in the Boston area.
She graduated from Needham High School, in Needham, Mass.
On the Upper Wildcat Trail, at the Wildcat Mountain Ski Area, in New Hampshire. The Presidential Range of the White Mountains looms to the west.
Wise watercolor
“The Sentinel’’ (watercolor), by Jeanette Fournier. It’s part of her show scheduled for The Gallery at WREN, in Bethlehem, N.H., Sept 4-29. We’ll see if the pandemic lets it happen.
Ms. Fournier is a watercolor painter and graphite artist whose work is driven by a love of nature and the creatures that live in it.
She says: "The compositions of my work are meant to be intimate, close-up portraits of the animals, birds and other creatures with which we share this world," especially those she sees around her Littleton, N.H., studio and in the nearby White Mountains.
Her Web site:
In Bethlehem, looking toward the snow-capped White Mountains.
— Photo by Stevage
The Littleton Public Library, with statue of Pollyanna
— Photo by Doug Kerr
Put big green power somewhere....?
From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com
The continuing controversy over Central Maine Power’s plan for a $1 billion transmission line, much of it through the North Woods, from Quebec’s massive hydroelectric operations to Massachusetts customers bespeaks the usual sort of “don’t tax me, don’t tax thee, tax the man behind the tree’’.
In addition to some business and labor unions, a bunch of former state environmental officials and activists have lauded the project because it is “clean energy.’’ Other enviros, including the Sierra Club, not very convincingly complain that it would hurt the vast Maine forests. Actually, the environmental impact of this project, which, besides providing green energy, would also make New England less dependent on fluctuations in the global gas and oil market, and thus more economically secure, would be minor once it’s built though construction can be messy.
The Portland Press Herald reported: “Mainers for Clean Energy Jobs – which comprises individuals, businesses, labor unions and trade associations backing the proposal to link hydroelectric power generated in Canada with customers in Massachusetts – announced on Monday a statement of support from a group that includes former commissioners of the Maine Department of Conservation, two former executive directors of the Natural Resources Council of Maine and a former president of the Maine Audubon Society.’’
Dot Kelly is co-chair of the energy team of the Maine Chapter of the Sierra Club. She has alleged that regulators haven’t addressed alternatives to the project, but it’s been under discussion for months -- since New Hampshire rejected a somewhat similar project. (The Granite State route apparently raised more serious and complex scenic/aesthetic (the White Mountains), economic and social issues than apply in the Pine Tree State.) Ms. Kelly, in the Press Herald account, seemed to tout the idea of burying the entire line, but Central Maine Power asserts that would raise the cost of the project to $1.6 billion from $950 million.
So reduce fossil-fuel burning – somewhere….
To read more, please hit these links:
https://www.pressherald.com/2020/01/13/group-backing-cmp-power-line-wins-support-of-former-environmental-leaders/
https://energynews.us/2019/06/04/northeast/developer-says-burying-power-line-through-maine-woods-is-not-practical/
Before the ski lifts
On the Franconia Ridge Trail, in the White Mountains.
"A visit to New Hampshire supplies the most resources to a traveler, and confers the most benefit on the mind and taste, when it lifts him above mere appetite for wildness, ruggedness, and the feeling of mass and precipitous elevation, into a perception and love of the refined grandeur, the chaste sublimity, the airy majesty overlaid with tender and polished bloom, in which the landscape splendor of a noble mountain lies.''
-- Thomas Starr King, (1824-1864), Unitarian minister and author of The White Hills; their Legends, Landscapes, & Poetry.