Spring Break 6: New Hampshire’s Beautiful White Mountains

…And yes, the weather was indeed much better the next day! Blue skies, glaring sun. After breakfast, we drove a bit west towards the Crawford Notch State Park to see if we would find a trailhead leading to the Arethusa Falls. And we did, so we wrapped ourselves up many-layered onion style and started off into the woods. In contrast to yesterday’s short footslog in the late afternoon, this was a beautiful hike. The entire forest floor was covered with snow while previous winds must have swept all of it down from the leafless trees and dark green conifers.

Arethusa Falls

Ascending this trail wasn’t too easy (for me; Julia got along fine) because the snow was very slippery, and I had lost the rear parts of both my shoes’ soles already days ago, so there wasn’t much grip I could benefit from. And the trail was very steep at times. But we managed, and after about an hour’s hike up and sometimes downhill, we arrived at the completely frozen Arethusa Falls. A solid wall of ice, maybe 130x200 ft, they were much bigger, and especially wider, than I had expected. And very beautiful to behold.

An apple and some water for our hydrological balance, a muffin to gimme some sugar, and back we went down that trail. However, if going up was difficult with my shoes at times, going down proved to be impossible. So remembering our locomotive means at Old Man’s Cave, I just slid down many slopes, and carefully walked the rest. I even fell once or twice while just standing—a great source of pleasure for Julia. But also for me, to be honest.

The Presidential Range

Back in the car, we followed U.S. Route 302 northwest and could see mighty Mount Washington looming up to the east, its upper third covered in snow—a very impressive sight, especially compared to the day before when the fog had prevented us from seeing the summits of most mountains around us. Unfortunately, there was no affordable way up that mountain, so we had to content ourselves with the sight of it. Later, we caught some more remarkable views on the snow covered Presidential Range. We were also considering renting a snowmobile for an hour or two and drove into Gorham, NH, to check that out, but in the end decided that one hour would have been too short, and two hours too expensive. So after lunch we drove about 110 miles south, and in a bit more than two hours arrived at our motel in Concord, NH. In the evening, we went to a theater and watched American Hustle. Good movie! Good story, good acting.