INTRODUCTION:
“Life
is like a box of chocolates.
You never know what you're gonna get.” ~ Forrest Gump
I began
this blog posting with the above quote because in early May 2020, I came across
some delightfully-unexpected views when bushwhacking on Mt. Cleveland’s southeastern
slopes. These wanderings were within
the publicly-available land of the White Mountain National Forest. The summit of Mt. Cleveland, as well as other
portions of this mountain, are on private land and should not be accessed unless
you have landowner permission to do so.
Mt.
Cleveland was named for President Grover Cleveland who summered in New
Hampshire. During his administration,
forest reserves were created throughout the nation, many of which eventually became
part of our national forest system.
PHOTOS:
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KEYWORDS: Gale River; P&FN Railroad; Mt. Cleveland;
New Hampshire
4 comments:
Hi John,
I'm happy to hear that you're still out and about. This outing looks like a delightful bushwhacking trek on a beautiful May Day.
I like your circa 1900 photo. In addition to the ski trails, I'm interested to know how the area has changed over the past 120 years? I hope it still has that lovely pastoral New England feel! (And I hope that Franconia Village hasn't sprawled all over the place, as our Western towns have done.)
I've been noticing wildflowers on my hikes in the last two weeks. While I love to see the flowers, I'm not a fan of "bug season" either!
Hi Rita,
Well, I’m delighted to report that there is very little urban sprawl in northern New Hampshire where I live. This area (along with nearby northern VT, and western ME) has retained much of the “lovely pastoral New England feel” that you mentioned, including the Village of Franconia.
However, with a notable exception of the Mt. Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, NH, nearly all of the ‘grand hotels’ of the 1800s and early 1900s have disappeared, mostly due to fire rather than purposeful demolition for shopping malls, housing developments, etc.
Thank you again for being such a faithful follower of my blog.
John
Hi John, with this less than typical year I realized I have been missing interesting posts from you, so I just subscribed to remedy.
Just so happens that I had been thinking a lot about that area around this same time. I'm a railfan and had been riding bikes with my son from the Skookumchuck Trailhead and up to the Gallen Bridge. Part of these rides was trying to trace exactly what parts of the bike trail were part of the P&FNRR ROW, which is quite apparent as a nervous dad mentoring a beginning rider who could feel the grade. This led to the discovery of 2 concrete survey corners that (I believe) marked the spot where the rail grade returned to soil on the North side of Lafayette Brook at the site of the Great Trestle.
Further research seems to unravel that parts of the current Rte. 3 'north' of Skookumchuck Trailhead are actually part of the RR grade, with the old Rte. 3 having headed 'north' through what now is the Profile Golfcourse. Comparing some historic maps shows this shift between roadbed and railbed. I was quite surprised just yesterday when looking at Town of Bethlehem tax maps, that the old Rte. 3 is shown as running along the area that now is Gale River Rd!
Those survey markers had the inscription HN on the top of each one, so I asked old friends who are the land surveyors for NH State Parks for any insights. They got back to me a couple days later and said I threw them for a loop for a bit until they realized I was just on the wrong side of the monuments when viewing; "Andrew, it's NH not HN !"
Sorry to pull you down off Mt. Cleveland with this comment, but to bring you back closer; one of things that jumped from some of the information I was researching was the past experimental forest in the area you started from, I never knew. Explains all the forest roads SE of Mt. Cleveland, and surprising to read about the effort nearly a century ago to drain and dry that whole area that the beaver are now ably repairing.
Hi Andrew . . . first of all, thank you for subscribing to my blog!
Also . . . thank you for sharing your findings regarding the old P&FN railroad, as well as the old corridor for US 3. We certainly live in an area chock-full of interesting history!
And regarding the abundance of forest roads SE of Mt. Cleveland, I’m delighted that many of them are now being maintained on a regular basis by the Bethlehem Trails Association, as well as a local snowmobile club. I’m sure that bikers and snowmobilers enjoy these trails, and I enjoy them as well for both walking and for XC-skiing. It’s great to have such a nice trail system so close to home!
Also, it terrific that you are riding bikes with your son. That paved segment between the Skoocumchuck Trailhead and the Gallen Bridge is a wonderful place for that!
All the best,
John
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