New
Hampshire
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New Hampshire Covered Bridge
22
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New Hampshire Covered Bridge
20-Cornish-Windsor Bridge
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Lake Sunapee seen from Mt. Sunapee
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View from Mt. Sunapee
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White Mountains National Forest
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Pemigawassat River
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Pemigawassat River Flume
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1st Cog Railway in U.S. to Mt.
Washngton summit
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Stone fences prevalent in New
England
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The covered bridges in New Hampshire and all of the North East were first started when Thomas Jefferson commissioned the first one to be built in 1806. The bridges are covered to protect the underlying timbers from the harsh weather. The design works because the two bridges pictured above were built in the 1850's and still carry traffic today. The Cornish-Windsor bridge is the longest covered bridge in the U.S. and the second longest in the world. The bridges are constructed with huge timbers, 8" square, that form a truss like you might see today in a metal bridge.
The White Mountain range in northern New Hampshire is home to Mount Washington. It is the tallest mountain in the N.E. at 6,288. It is best known for the weather extremes that exist there in the winter. The highest recorded wind speed of the world was recorded there in 1934, 231 mph. The Army uses it for winter training. The Cog Railway shown above goes to the top and has been taking tourists up there since 1869. Part of the White Mountain range is also called the Presidential Range, most of the peaks have been given names of the US Presidents. What is amazing about the area is that there are so many peaks above 4,000 ft high so close to each other; the drive through the area is spectacular.
The stone fences and walls shown above are everywhere, along roads, in front of houses and around fields. Today, the area is full of tall pines, spruce and hardwoods, but it has not always been that way. When the settlers moved into these areas, they cleared the forest to make fields that could be cultivated to grow crops. As they cleared the fields of the natural rocks, they piled the rocks along the edge of the fields to make boundaries. If you go into the forest today, you can still find the old stone fences throughout the woods. Today we think of the forest as the way it has always been, but if you see photos of this area in the late 1800's, most of the trees were gone. The farmers had to make fields in which to grow their food. The forests have recovered and filled every piece of the land.
It is wild here, we actually saw a Black Bear crossing the little road by our campground.
We visited a local "sugar house"
and got the full tour. Oh yeah, a "sugar house" is where they make
all that wonderful Maple Syrup. You have seen pictures of the buckets hanging
from the maple tree collecting the sap. They still do that some, but most of
the sap is collected by a system of plastic tubing that runs from the tree taps
down to a collection tank. It looks strange to look up the hill and see all
the wires and tubes coming down the hill. The sap is the consistency of water
as it comes out of the tree and is almost clear. The sap is boiled down until
most of the moisture evaporates and leaves the maple syrup for your pancakes.
The facts: it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. The syrup sells
for $28.00 per gallon, a lot of work for $28.00 . The family we visited do it
mainly because it is a family tradition; they all have other jobs for their
main income. The season is about 6-8 weeks long (February and March), it takes
certain temperatures to make the tree release the sap.