Autumn in the White Mountains of New Hampshire

Transcription

1 Updated - February Where, when, and how to discover the best photography in America Published since 1989 Autumn in the White Mountains of New Hampshire Photographers traveling long distances, trying to photograph as much as possible in a short period of time, often feel obligated to shoot, regardless of the weather. Luckily, my trip into the White Mountains of New Hampshire was made during a week of rain and thundershowers interspersed with foggy mornings and overcast afternoons. I packed my raincoat, waxed my boots, and was ready for anything. After returning home and going through the images from my trip, I noticed that my favorite images were made in the early morning or during that magic moment called alpenglow, about fifteen minutes after the sun had dropped over the horizon. I had a plastic bag wrapped around the camera while I photographed the scene above. This small pond is located below the Crawford Notch in the middle of the White Mountains. A cold fog was lifting from the lake. It was a great day for photography. Even though I have made a dozen autumn color photo trips to New England, I returned once more. I wanted to hike trails and drive back roads that I had missed. I wanted to see what had changed since my last trip to New Hampshire.

2 issue 53 - page 2 In the early 1900s, northern New Hampshire was heavily populated. Railroads were built, and lumber companies began to buy up the land and log the forests. Conservation organizations pressured Congress to purchase private lands and preserve the forests. The White Mountain National Forest was established in Fifty-seven miles from north to south and fifty-seven miles across, the 763,502 acres include five specially protected wilderness areas, and over twelvehundred miles of hiking trails. Photographers visiting New Hampshire during the peak of the autumn color season will find what they are looking for if they get off the roads and do a little trail walking. The Kancamagus Highway is well known for its traffic jams during the peak of autumn color. While there are many places to stop and pull off the pavement, you may not find a place to park your car. Avoid driving this route during the first weekend in October I ll tell you about better places to look for color. This was a very wet year in New Hampshire with heavy rains during the early summer. The ice storms of last winter caused some damage in the northern forests. It is always safe to say that leaves in the northern part of the state will change earlier in the autumn. Leaves in the southern part of the state will change later in the autumn. The peak of fall color usually occurs over a period of a few days. In any given spot, the peak may occur anytime between the middle of September through the second week of October. It is usually safe to schedule your photo trip to New Hampshire during the last week of September and the first week of October. I have seen the peak of autumn color arrive on Jay s Peak in northern Vermont, as early as September 15th. During that same year, I followed the peak color as it slowly moved to the south and east. The Pilot Range in the northern section of the White Mountains lies east of St. Johnsbury, Vermont. I ve photographed the peak of autumn color around St. Johnsbury during the last week of September on several autumn color trips. September 25 might be a good time to arrive in the northern mountains. If the color arrives on time, Crawford Notch should be ready to photograph around October 1. The Kancamagus Highway, farther south might see the peak of color around October 5. You can mark these dates on your planning calendar, but since every autumn is different, call the telephone hotline as the season arrives. Every year is different. To schedule your arrival in the White Mountains at the peak of the color, call the New Hampshire hotline for daily updates on the status of fall color. Filters for autumn color For my trip to the White Mountains, I packed a few Singh-Ray filters, including a warming polarizer and a Color Intensifier. Color images made with the Singh-Ray Intensifier are more subtle, with fewer pinkcloud problems than with other didymium enhancing filters. Bob Singh s Color Intensifier is wonderful for bringing out warm colors on overcast and rainy days. A Tiffen 812 filter, with a strong magenta color, was useful for removing green color casts on water and stone beneath overhanging trees. It s not necessary when shooting reflections of autumn color but is useful when working in an evergreen forest. Pack a polarizer for this trip. A warming polarizer can really snap up the colors of an autumn landscape.

3 issue 53 - page 3 Where to start your explorations Since autumn color starts in the north and works its way south, start your photo explorations of the White Mountains in the more remote northern regions of the National Forest, called the Pilot Range. The area is a three-hour drive north of Boston on Interstate 93. Instead of following the tourist traffic from Interstate Highway onto the Kancamagus Highway and through North Conway, continue heading north on Interstate 93. Leave Interstate 93 at Exit 37 and head north on Forest Hill Road. This far north, the color should be looking good along this wooded stretch of Highway 142. When you reach the small town of Bethlehem, #142 jogs right and then left to continue north. Turn left and drive up the main street of Bethlehem, through the village, past the old movie theater, and the large Victorian homes. Continue north on #142, all the way to Whitefield, another classic New England village. Turn left on Highway 3, through the center of Whitefield and continue north toward Lancaster, New Hampshire. There are some great panoramic views to the north as you pass Weeks State Park on Highway 3. Watch the street signs as you drive through Lancaster. Turn right on Mechanic Street Bridge Road, drive through the old covered bridge, and continue east a mile to a left turn marked Grange. Follow your Delormé Atlas, you will spot the village north of Grange called Lost Nation, New Hampshire. Up the Lost Nation Road The Lost Nation Road, between Lancaster and Groveton, N. H., reminds me of much of rural Vermont. Avoid crowds of tourists and find some great autumn color photography along the Lost Nation Road. Along this tenmile stretch of country road are some great barns and one classic white church with a bright red door. Just north of the village of Lost Nation, the tiny St. Timothy s Episcopal Chapel stands beside the road. Most of this narrow back road is lined with color in the fall. Farther up the road is a shop in a rustic building that sells and repairs wooden snowshoes and birch bark canoes. You ll find four giant sugar maples framing a classic farm house and creating a tunnel of color above the pavement. When you reach the northern end of the Lost Nation Road, make a right turn onto Highway 110. Drive six miles east on this fast, two-lane State Highway. Watch for the sign marking the side road to Stark, make a left turn and drive through the Stark Covered Bridge over the Upper Ammonoosuc River. Turn right on the North Side Road. This next stretch of road, all the way to the village of Percy, is one of the better locations for autumn color, when you arrive on the right day. At the end of a long tunnel of sugar maples, a beautiful stream cascades down the hill and through the village. Some of the road between Bell Hill Road and the village of Crystal may be impassable. Get back on Highway 110 and watch for the left turn onto Paris Road. Drive up the hill to the cross roads and turn left on Plain Road. As you cross the bridge over Phillips Brook in Crystal, look upstream. A beautiful waterfall drops over granite ledges and roars down a narrow flume a tripod spot that s definitely worth the search. An old federal-style home stands across the road from the waterfall. Only a few old homes remain in each of the villages marked on maps of this road. Continue east on the old North Side Road to the village of West Milan where you can get back on Highway 110. From here, the town of Gorham is less than thirty miles south.

4 issue 53 - page 4 Into the Pilot Range on the Bog Dam Road On a road map of New Hampshire, there is a separate section of the White Mountain National Forest called the Pilot Range. This section of the National Forest lies directly south of the back road through the villages of Stark, Percy, and Crystal. There is one long loop road with access into the east side of the forest. It s one of my favorite places to look for autumn color early in the season. Bog Dam Road is lined with tall sugar maple and groves of white birch. Forests of beech, ash, hickory, and other hardwoods are interspersed with fir, spruce, pine, and some tamarack (larch) in the low and boggy areas along the Upper Ammonoosuc River. This road loops around a low river valley that provides the drinking water supply for the City of Berlin. You ll find some interesting stream scenes from the bridge over Keenan Brook, about halfway around the loop. Most of the road is unpaved but smoothly graded. Keenan Brook, about halfway around the Bog Dam Loop Road. Seven miles northwest of the City of Berlin, New Hampshire, watch for a small road sign marking the York Pond Road. You ll pass a few small homes and farms for about two miles. When you reach a sign pointing out that you are entering the White Mountain National Forest at the Kilkenny Guard Station, take a left at the fork onto Bog Dam Road. You can drive either direction around this fifteen-mile loop road. You won t get lost if you travel the mostly unpaved road clockwise. If you keep to the right on the paved side of the fork, you ll end up at the Berlin Fish Hatchery. An all-day trip around the Bog Dam Road through the Pilot Range is THE best place to photograph the beginnings of autumn foliage in the White Mountains. There are miles and miles of solid color if you call the telephone hotline and arrive at the right time. The Use the town of Gorham, New Hampshire, as a headquarters for your photo explorations. It s only a thirty-minute drive from the National Forest of the northern Pilot Range to the town of Gorham. From Gorham, the Pinkham Notch area and the eastern edge of the National Forest are nearby (across the border into Maine). There is an excellent selection of lodgings and restaurants in Gorham. Most of the highways through the White Mountains are broad, paved roads. A few are multi-lane highways with wide shoulders and plenty of places to pull over and park. I prefer to drive the narrow, single-lane back roads the narrower the better when I go looking for fall color. When the trees lining the road spread their overhanging branches to meet in the middle, they form a canopy that blocks out the sky. Sunlight is diffused and softened, and the range of light is reduced to less than five stops something that most color slide films can handle. I can expose for the shadows in the forest and dark textures of the tree trunks without completely washing out the backlit colors of the overhead foliage. Broad, open vistas can make exciting photographs. Sometimes I prefer subjects and lighting that are more subtle. Back roads through remote regions of the north woods are often unpaved and

5 issue 53 - page 5 A back road lined with hardwood forests that may be at the peak of their autumn color change when you arrive is the Dolly Copp Road. It leaves Highway 16 four miles south of Gorham and two miles north of the Mt. Washington Auto Road. The road crosses the Peabody River, passes the Dolly Copp Campground, and winds through a wooded area below Mt. Madison for five miles before reaching Highway 2 in the village of Ransometimes closed because of washouts or mud slides. Drive these roads on weekends when there is less chance of meeting a logging truck on a blind curve. East of Gorham on the back roads From Gorham, head east on Highway 2 for a few miles, then cross the Androscoggin River. Along the partially-paved North Road are old farms and barns and lots of color in early October. Drive the North Road all the way to the old one-lane bridge at Gilead, Maine, cross the river and head back, about two miles west on Highway 2. Turn south off Highway 2 onto a narrow, paved back road marked #113, two miles east of the Maine/New Hampshire border. In three miles, turn right at a National Park sign onto the Wild River Road. For over five miles, this unpaved road follows the wide and rocky Wild River up a flat valley before ending at the remote Wild River Campground. Back on the pavement of #113, the road follows Evans Brook up to the top of Evans Notch. There s a good viewpoint at the top. The road heads south then crosses the border back into New Hampshire and passes the Cold River Campground and the Cold River AMC Camp. This is a major trailhead for a number of hiking trails that lead west over Carter Notch to Pinkhams Notch. For the next few miles, you ll see some great farm houses and barns along this road. Notice that the barns are all connected to the houses. Farmers could feed their animals and milk the cows in the winter without going outside. Maple syrup For Sale signs hang along this country road lined with sugar maples. When the road crosses back into Maine, bear right on the side road marked Chatham. This remote New Hampshire village is right on the edge of the state and can only be reached on roads through Maine. The town hall was built in There is a large, whitesteepled church, a library, and a large cemetery surrounded by a fence made of large slabs of granite New Hampshire is called the Granite State. In the center of the village is a large vegetable garden. Every house in Chatham has a large garden. Turn east in the center of Chatham, past the bright yellow farm house and barn. It s worth stopping for a photograph of this one. The road crosses the border back into Maine and heads south for three miles. Follow your map for the turn onto S. Chatham Road where you ll re-enter New Hampshire. Continue south to Upper Kimball Pond (another good photo stop) and watch for the sign at the corner of Hurricane Mountain Road. This road climbs steeply over Hurricane Mountain and ends at Highway 16, a few miles north of North Conway, New Hampshire. The Pinkham Notch Road One of the more heavily-traveled roads through the White Mountains is Highway 16 through the Pinkham Notch. There are some great spots to find autumn color on this route down the east side of Mt. Washington.

6 issue 53 - page 6 There s a mixture of evergreen and hardwood forests above Willey Pond. This wide spot along the Saco River lies three miles south of the Crawford Notch. This is a great spot for early morning light in the autumn. dolph, a few miles west of Gorham. I have seen good autumn color along the Dolly Copp Road several days before the peak color reaches the North Conway or Crawford Notch area. Heading south on Highway 16, a mile north of the Mt. Washington Road, is a marked trailhead on the east side of the road. A sign points the way up Nineteen Mile Trail toward the Appalachian Mountain Club hut on Carter Notch. Park and walk the rocky trail a short distance up Nineteen Mile Brook. Overhanging maple trees frame cascades dropping over honey-colored granite. Another autumn color spot to mark on your map. A mile farther south on Highway 16 is the entrance to the Mt. Washington Auto Road. You can reach the top of the highest peak in the northeast U.S. from the west side of the mountain via a cogged railway. Drive your own car up the eight-mile slope (with an average grade of 12%) or, for a few dollars more, ride to the top in a van driven by a guide. By driving your own car, you can stop to enjoy the view when you want. In their van, you can watch the view all the way up. The guided tours stay on the top for thirty minutes. The private car tour fee includes an audio tour on a cassette tape. It s cold up there. The highest recorded temperature ever measured on the top of Mt. Washington was only 72. The record low was -49. The highest wind speed ever recorded on Earth was clocked up there at 231 mph. Pack a warm jacket for your trip to Mt. Washington. The Pinkham Notch Visitor Center is ten miles south of Gorham. This is a major trail head for hikers climbing Mt. Washington with lodgings for hikers and a trading post, cafeteria, and restrooms. An easy fifteenminute hike up Tuckerman Ravine Trail leads to one of the more dramatic falls in the White Mountains. A 28mm lens will frame the eighty-foot drop of the Crystal Cascade. The trail gets steep near the top then climbs stairs to a perfect viewpoint. Don t miss the large relief map in the Visitor Center Trading Post. It will give you a good idea of the topography and the layout of the trails and roads of this area. They have a great collection of trail maps, and guide books about the White Mountains plus wildlife, bird, and plant identification guides. You can buy a parking permit in the visitor center. At most of the trailhead parking areas in the White Mountain National Forest, there are signs posted saying that a parking permit is now needed to leave a car parked anywhere in the National Forest. It s an easy walk to Glen Ellis Falls, just south of the Pinkham Notch Visitor Center. Park on the west side of the highway. A pedestrian Willey Pond on the Saco River

7 issue 53 - page 7 tunnel leads under Highway 16, the Pinkham Notch Road, down a steep flight of stone steps to the bottom of a sixty-foot waterfall. There are some interesting cascades along the short trail to the fall. Jackson Falls are on the Wildcat River, the first federally-designated Wild and Scenic River in New Hampshire. The falls are accessible, along the road through the village of Jackson. They are just above the village and are quite dramatic when framed in red and orange foliage. Take the marked turn into the village of Jackson, New Hampshire, and continue around the loop road marked Highway 16B. At the far end of the loop, continue north on the deadend road up Carter Notch. Bretton Woods and Crawford Notch Cutting right through the middle of the White Mountains National Forest is Crawford Notch. If you arrive in New Hampshire after the color in the northern mountains has already started to fade, you may find the best color around the Crawford Notch area. Instead of traveling farther upstate, get off Interstate 93 at Exit 37, drive into the village of Bethlehem and, without going any farther north, head east on Highway 302 into the center of the White Mountains. Bretton Woods is just west of the Notch. view of the notch from Mt. Willard One of the finest views from a high point in all the White Mountains is from the top of Mt. Willard at 2,850 feet. This climb is rated as moderate in some trail guides and challenging in others. The elevation gain is about 900 feet. At the top of the trail, a grand view of a U-shaped valley carved by a glacier lies below. Highway 302 runs right up the center of the valley, along the Saco River. Arrive for a sunrise or sunset and one side of the valley will be in shadow. Midday sun lights up the whole valley, which runs north and south. A clear and sunny day lights up the colors of the hardwood forests below. Don t forget your polarizer. Skip this climb if the day is overcast or if rain is predicted. The trail starts just across the railroad tracks of the old Maine Central Line at the Crawford Depot. You can t miss this brightly-painted relic across the road from Saco Lake. They sell trail guides, maps, and warm sweatshirts at the information desk in the old depot. Cross the tracks and start up the Avalon Trail for a couple hundred feet, then turn left at the Mt. Willard sign. It s a steady climb up a fairly straight trail. Large drainage pipes across the trail help control the mud problem. You ll be climbing up and over rocks and exposed roots. It took me two hours to climb to the overlook at the top, spend fifteen minutes photographing the view, and return to the bottom. Wear or There are eighteen public campgrounds inside the White Mountain National Forest. Most campsites are available on a first-come basis. The Wild River Campground has only eleven campsites, But there are hundreds of private campgrounds and RV parks located outside the National Forest and scattered around New Hampshire. For information, a list of locations, or to reserve a camp site or RV space at any of the New Hampshire Campground Owners Association locations, call: The Crawford Depot

8 issue 53 - page 8 Looking south from Mt. Willard, down the U-shaped, glacier-carved valley below Crawford Notch. Notches are called passes or gaps in other mountainous areas of the U.S. In the White Mountains, these include the Crawford Notch, Carter, Bear, Franconia, Pinkham, Kinsman, and Jefferson Notches. carry a warm parka for the stiff winds that blast through Crawford Notch on a cold day. Skip the steep and brushy side trail marked Hitchcock Flume. Roots covering the trail are very slippery when wet. From the top of Mt. Willard, you can see a lake in the distance actually a pond above a dam on the Saco River. This is a good spot for foggy morning photography. The white birch in the forest across the lake reflect in the still water of the pond. Over the Jefferson Notch Road Every time I ve driven the Mt. Clinton Road, I have found great autumn color. The Mt. Clinton Road leaves Highway 302 just north of the Crawford Notch. The road starts a few hundred yards west of Saco Lake. The road is completely lined with sixty-foot beech and sugar maples that have grown over the road to form a canopy. You ll be driving through a tunnel of red and orange leaves for about four miles. This is a good location on an overcast day in the fall. There are no power lines along this road. This can be the best spot in the White Mountains. When you come to a stop sign, you ve reached the road to the base station of the Mt. Washington Cog Railway. Turn right, drive a couple miles up this road, and you can see the bottom of the steep tracks that lead to the top of the highest peak in New Hampshire. From this spot, you can see the top of Mt. Washington, a couple thousand feet above. Starting from this passenger station, coal-powered steam trains appear to climb straight up the mountain. Built in 1869 with tilted boilers and cog gears that lock into toothed ratchets on the rails, each of the seven locomotives pulls one passenger car up a three-mile grade as steep as 37 at one point. It looks like an exciting ride to the top if you don t want to drive up Mt. Washington. As you drive down the mountain, watch for the White Mountain National Forest sign at the turn onto the Mt. Clinton Road. To keep exploring and photographing more autumn color, turn right and continue driving north. This stretch of the Mt. Clinton Road, on the north side of the Cog Railway Access Road, is called the Jefferson Notch Road. A sign at the turn says Narrow Winding Road Next 9 Miles. This unpaved road climbs through Jefferson Notch, alongside Jefferson Brook. There are many places to pull off the road and park to photograph cascades and small waterfalls on the brook. The forest is mixed with evergreen fir and spruce. Some stretches of the road are solidly lined with hardwoods. The woods become dense and dark with moss covering the forest floor. At the highest point on this road through Jefferson Notch, a large sign claims that, at 3009 feet, this is the highest point reached by any public road in the state of New Hampshire. The private road to the top of Mt. Washington climbs to 6,288 feet. There is a view of the top of Mt. Washington from the trailhead parking lot behind the sign. Beyond Jefferson Notch, the evergreen forest changes again to hardwood as the road follows Little Bear Brook. Because of all the stops for photography, it took me a half-day to drive one mile on this stretch of road. Little Bear Brook and the South Branch of the Israel River meet a few miles farther north. Moss-covered banks and a hardwood forest shade the confluence. The north end of Jefferson Notch Road meets Highway 2 directly across the road from the Jefferson Notch Motel, just west of Bowman, New Hampshire.

9 issue 53 - page 9 The Kancamagus Highway Arrive late in October, after the best autumn color has started to fade in the northern White Mountains, and you may have to concentrate on the southern regions. As you re driving up Interstate 93, leave the Highway at Exit 32 and head east through Lincoln, New Hampshire. Lincoln s Main Street, Highway 112, becomes the Kancamagus Highway. This very popular and scenic route climbs to 3,000 feet at the summit. To avoid traffic jams at the peak of autumn color, plan your arrival for the middle of the week, and you will find parking spaces at the vista points and in the small trailhead parking areas. The Otter Rocks Rest Area, about six miles east of Lincoln, is one of the shots you don t want to miss. You can see the swift-flowing Hancock Branch from the road. Set up your tripod on the large, flat rock in the middle of the stream and shoot upstream. Autumn color frames a cascade sliding down smooth, honey-colored granite. The trail to Greely Ponds There s an easy trail to a pair of beautiful mountain lakes on the south side of the Kancamagus Highway. The small parking area at the trailhead is located nine miles east of Lincoln. The two Greely Ponds sit in the Mad River Notch between Mount Kancamagus and Mount Osceola. These classic mountain ponds are the source of a beautiful white water stream that flows into the Pemigewasset River. The trail climbs gradually through a forest of evergreens, beech, and white birch. The trail is lined with color in early October. In late spring and early summer, the trail is wet and boggy is many places. Logs and planks bridge the deeper mud holes. By mid summer, the mud is not a problem. Hikers must walk the trail carefully to avoid tripping over the tangle of bare tree roots on granite bedrock. In many places, the multitude of roots has formed a spider web pattern, sometimes wrapping whole boulders that happened to get in the way of a tree seeking water from the soil below. Sphagnum moss grows in some of the wettest bogs along the trail. Tiny carnivorous sundews grow in the mosses, catching and digesting insects with sticky hairs on rounded leaves. Amanita mushrooms grow along the trail and plenty of wildflowers flourish in the openings along the trail between Upper and Lower Ponds. The hike to Upper Greely Pond takes an hour. It s fifteen minutes farther to Lower Pond. Allow at least three hours for the round trip hike and add several more hours if the light and the weather are perfect and you arrive at the peak of autumn color. This one-hour hike climbs 800 feet from the trailhead to Upper Greely Pond. A short side trail leads down to the sandy edge of the first pond you ll reach. Ice storm damage on the summits For five miles in both directions, east and west of the summit on the Kancamagus Highway, fallen birch trees were being crowded out by the new growth of maturing evergreen forests. Most of the White Mountain s deciduous forests are at lower elevations. The best autumn color I ve found in the White Mountains has been along the bottoms of river valleys and not at the top of the Kancamagus Highway. Sabbaday Falls Beech, sugar maple, and yellow birch line the trail to Sabbaday Falls. The trailhead is located on the south side of the Kancamagus Highway, near the Passaconaway Campground, nineteen miles east of I-93. The trailhead is well-marked. The round-trip hike to the falls and back is just over a halfmile. In the autumn, the stream Sabbaday

10 issue 53 - page 10 The Albany Covered Bridge over the Swift River is located near the eastern end of the Kancamagus Highway. Drive through the bridge and follow the back roads into North Conway, avoiding all the traffic. Brook cascades through the forest beneath a canopy of color. There are large flat rocks and gravel bars where you can set up a tripod in the middle of the water course. Arrive on an overcast day or in the early morning or late afternoon when there are no hot spots on the light-colored granite boulders in the stream. When you reach the waterfall, get off the trail and carefully move out across the wet and slippery rocks to the base of the narrow canyon or flume. There s a good vertical shot looking up the cascade dropping between moss-covered granite walls if you don t mind photographing the foot bridge crossing the canyon above the falls. To reach the top of the falls, you have to climb the wooden stairs, the only real climbing involved. There are several good viewpoints halfway up and at the top of the falls. Sabbaday Falls is dramatic in the early summer when the stream is full. The stream drops ten feet from an upper pool then makes a sharp turn before cascading down the flume into an even deeper lower pool at the bottom. At the top of the falls, loop through the woods and return to the trail going back to the parking area. Another well-worn trail above the falls continues up the stream. I found more cascades up there, framed by overhanging beech trees above the stream. The Sabbaday Brook Trail continues fairly level for a mile. The trail continues to climb two-thousand feet into the Sandwich Range Wilderness. That s where I turned around and returned to my car. The Bear Notch Road is a great way to escape the heavy traffic on the Kancamagus Highway. If you are heading north to the Crawford Notch area, take this shortcut. The north end of Bear Notch Road joins Highway 302 in the village of Bartlett. The Albany Covered Bridge, built in 1858, is on the north side of the road, near the east end of the Kancamagus Highway. Watch for a sign marking the turn onto Passaconaway Road. This road crosses the bridge, then follows the north side of the Swift River. A mile beyond the covered bridge and a half-mile east of the Covered Bridge Campground, the narrow paved road crosses a stream. Watch for metal guard rails along the side of the road. Except for the covered bridge over the Swift River, only one stream (called Big Brook) flows beneath a bridge along the entire length of Passaconaway Road. There is a spot to park on the edge of Big Brook, below Woodchuck Ledge. Passaconaway Road continues east past Red Eagle Pond a good place to spot moose in the morning and ends, four miles farther, at the West Side Road. Turn left on the West Side Road and you ll miss the heavy traffic into North Conway. North Conway, New Hampshire Over six-million visitors come to the White Mountain National Forest each year. If you drive all the way to the end of the Kancamagus Highway, and turn left on Highway 16, in about a mile, you ll come to two stop lights, a block apart. To avoid inching along in solid leaf-peeper traffic, turn left at the first stop light onto Washington Street. This is the West Side Road, a lightly traveled short cut up the west side of the Saco River Washington Street forks. The road to the right is East Side Road. Take the fork to the left and you re on the West Side Road. It passes another nearby covered bridge over the Swift River. This two-lane country road passes several working dairy farms and many old farm houses. One is framed perfectly by huge maple trees in the front yard.

11 issue 53 - page 11 Sunrise location on Chocorua Lake I enjoy photographing the sun rising over any lake surrounded by autumn color. New Hampshire s Lake District, just south of the White Mountains, is dotted with lakes. Chocorua Lake is located twelve minutes south of the Saco Ranger Station on Highway 16. You can t miss the large lake on the west side of the road. A bridge crosses a narrow isthmus between Chocorua and Little Lake. Several white birch trees frame a view looking north. Several times, on trips through the White Mountains, I was out there on the bridge before sunrise, waiting for the first rays to light up the tip of Mt. Chocorua. There s a lot of hardwood color circling the lake and covering the lower slopes of the mountain. It s not easy to find locations for good early morning reflections on the wide stretches of the Saco River. This stream twists and turns its way south, between Highway 16 and the West Side Road right past North Conway. There are very few access roads to the edge of this river. That makes it an ideal canoe river. You can paddle for miles and miles without seeing roads or towns. Renting a canoe is an excellent way to photograph autumn color along the wide, slow Saco River. A dozen canoe rental outfits are listed in the North Conway Yellow Pages. Waterville Valley the Southern forest The most brilliant autumn colors paint the southern regions of the White Mountains after the north woods have started to fade and leaves have begun to drop. When you re driving north on Interstate 93, leave the highway at Exit 31 and head east on Tripoli Road. Ten miles of unpaved road climb through beautiful hardwood forests on the slopes of Mt. Osceola through the Thornton Gap to the Waterville Valley. The waterfalls and cascades that drop down Eastman Brook flowing beside this road are as dramatic as any you ll find in this national forest. There are many marked trailheads and lots of short and easy trails along the streams through the Waterville Valley. Another road into the Waterville Valley is the broad, paved Highway 49. It is the main access road to a major ski resort and conference center in the Waterville Valley. You can also reach this area by leaving the Interstate at Exit 28 and driving up Highway 48. I prefer entering and leaving the area via Exit 31. Arrive at the peak of autumn color in the southern regions of the White Mountains and you may want to spend all your time right here, just photographing along the Tripoli Road. Most of my favorite images taken during my last autumn trip were made here, along the stream on the east side of the Thornton Gap. It was during the second week of October and I was heading back to Boston when I discovered what is now one of my favorite back roads through the White Mountain National Park. Have a great trip! Chocorua Lake is located on the southern edge of the White Mountain National Forest and along the northern edge of New Hampshire s Lake District.

12 Internet Resources U. S. NATIONAL PARKS / STATE PARKS White Mountain National Forest: LODGING Villager Motel, Bartlett, NH White Mountain Motel, Lincoln, NH Best Western White Mountain Inn, Franconia, NH Carlson s Lodge, Twin Mountain, NH CAR RENTALS FALL COLOR / FOLIAGE HOTLINES My life-long career in photography began at San Jose State University in After college, I enlisted in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, serving as a photographer and darkroom technician. In Germany, my skills and experience with equipment and lab work were developed and polished. I took the opportunity to photograph the beauty of nature in the Black Forest. Returning to California in 1965, I produced industrial and military training films for Raytheon Electronics and began showing my color nature prints. From 1969 through 1981, my photography was exhibited and sold in West Coast galleries. During the early 1980 s, I taught color darkroom workshops, then expanded to include field trips. Former customers, who had purchased my framed photographs, wanted to learn photography. My Pacific Image Photography Workshops offered adventures to the Pacific Coast, the Southwest deserts, national parks, Hawaii, New England, Canada, England, and the South Pacific. The workshops evolved into writing and sharing my adventures with others. Photograph America Newsletter provides information on where, when, and how to discover the best nature photography in North America. WEATHER CONDITIONS The Weather Channel: The National Weather Service: SPECIALTY CLOTHING Tilly Hats: CAMERA EQUIPMENT Photograph America Newsletter is published quarterly (four issues/year) by Robert Hitchman assisted by technical associate/wife, Katherine Post Office Box 86, Novato, CA All contents of this newsletter copyright Robert Hitchman Please don t make copies for your friends. This is a violation of Federal copyright laws. This newsletter survives on subscriptions.