Month: April 2016

The other day as I was happily cruising down a deserted side street, bypassing the tourist-clogged main artery of North Conway, New Hampshire, it occurred to me that I might have finally earned the right to call myself a local here in the White Mountains.  And it’s not just traffic short cuts that I’ve discovered; over the past two years I’ve stumbled on the best places to eat, the best places to drink, the best place to get cider donuts, and most importantly, the best places to hike.

The White Mountains have some of the top hiking in New England.  I’m fortunate to have much of it right outside my front door.  Remember that SNL skit when Tina Fey did a dead-on impression of a loopy Sarah Palin?  She explained her foreign policy “credentials” like this: “I can see Russia from my house.” Well, on a clear day, I can see the East Coast’s finest hike from mine.

What are New Hampshire’s best hikes?  Allow a local to answer.

Continue reading “A Local’s “Must Do” New Hampshire Hikes”

I took the opportunity during this week — my vacation week — to do some whitewater paddling.  As anyone reading my recent posts understands, I’ve become obsessed with the North Fork of the Pemigewasset river here in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.  On Tuesday we got some rain, and finding the Upper Pemi — another one of my hit list rivers this spring — too low, I drove to the East Branch of the Pemi.

The East Branch is a New England classic.  This is the river I’d be paddling on for the last 7-8 miles if I run the North Fork.  By the time it reaches Loon Ski area, it’s a big river — flowing at just under 1,000 cubic feet per second on this day — a nice medium-low level.  I stashed my bike at Loon, where they’re attempting to rebuild the bridge over the river for about the eighth time in three years.

When I got to the put in at Lincoln Woods though, I started to wonder, “What if I walk upstream a little ways and put on higher than normal?” The river was at a nice level, and I wasn’t especially excited about just running the usual stretch.  I’d written last week about the time I carried my boat up the Lincoln Woods trail for three miles to Franconia Brook — and about how uncomfortable and draining this was.  I wasn’t planning to do this today.  I’d just hike up about a mile or so . . .

Continue reading “Hudson Gorge, Hang Gliding, and the East Branch of the Pemi”

In last week’s post, I wrote that the river that had risen to the top of my Hit List during the brooding period this winter was the North Fork of the Pemigewasset, arguably the longest stretch of whitewater in New England that nobody ever kayaks.  Why?  Because you can’t get into your boat until you’ve lugged it four miles uphill.  A four mile hike will keep most of us away.

Let me rephrase that.  A four-mile hike with a kayak will keep most of us away.  Even though we as a nation are growing more obese with every flavor-packed snack produced (after all, what can you really do when someone engineers something as diabolical as Trader Joe’s bacon-flavored popcorn?) — still, there are whole parking lots full of paranormally dedicated hikers here in New England who will not only think nothing of hiking four miles uphill, but they’ll want to do it during a blizzard, while it’s pitch dark, wearing shoes made entirely of hemp.  Take the “grid” movement for instance, New England hiking’s latest fad.  Completing a grid involves hiking each one of New Hampshire’s forty-eight 4,000 foot mountains during every month of the year.  That means you have to hike 18 miles out to Bondcliff in December.  And then in January.  And in February.  It’s crazy.  No wonder the moniker “gridiots.”

Continue reading “North Fork of the Pemigewasset”