"New Hampshire's White Mountains"

Sydney M. Williams

Essays from Essex

“New Hampshire’s White Mountains”

August 29, 2016

“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountains and the sea

 are excellent school masters, and teach us more than we can learn from books.”

                                                                                                Sir John Lubbock (1834-1913)

                                                                                                Naturalist, University of London

“New Hampshire’s mountains curl up in a coil.”

                                                                                                Robert Frost (1874-1963)

                                                                                                “New Hampshire” 1923

Straight ahead is Eisenhower. My eleven-year-old grandson tells me the rounded, domed peak mimics the late President’s bald head. I am impressed with George’s cranial knowledge of past Presidents. We are sitting on the veranda of the Mt. Washington Hotel looking south and east toward the Presidential Range.

The hotel, now renovated and owned by the Omni Group, was the scene, in the summer of 1944, of the Bretton Woods Conference that set new rules for the post-War international monetary system that created the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and assured stable currencies, with the U.S. Dollar exchangeable into gold at $35.00 per ounce and with other currencies pegged to it. The system worked, at least for twenty-seven years, until in 1971 the Nixon Administration, coping with rising inflation and a run on the metal, ended gold convertibility.

In July of 1944 the Second World War had nine months to run. By the time of the Conference the Allies had landed at Normandy. The Soviet Army was moving west toward the Elbe. American, British and Canadian troops were pushing east toward the Rhine. Paris was yet to be liberated. Tens of thousands more would die, but ultimate victory seemed clear. Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, in the summer of 1944, were committed to avoiding what a lack of planning had unleashed on Europe in the years following the Armistice ending the First World War twenty-six years earlier. Conference delegates were watched over by the inspiring and magisterial peaks of Washington, Adams and Jefferson.

From our view on the veranda we look out at a number of summits – Pierce, Eisenhower, Franklin, Monroe, Washington, Reagan[1], Jefferson, Adams and Madison. Franklin was named for Benjamin Franklin, who while never President, nevertheless served a critical role in the founding of our government. There is a Mt. Jackson, but that is named for Charles Thomas Jackson, a New Hampshire geologist, not Andrew Jackson. There is also a Mt. Lincoln, but that is in Franconia Notch, not the “Presidential Range.”

The White Mountain National Forest (WMNF) was established in 1918. While we typically associate Theodore Roosevelt with conservation efforts, it was President Benjamin Harrison who, in 1891, signed the bill creating the National Forest System. At 750,852 acres, the WMNF seems large, but relative to the 190 million acres of National Forest owned by the federal government it is small. Geologists estimate that the White Mountains, which are part of the Appalachian Range, were formed about 100 million years ago. Even to a white-haired grandfather of ten that seems a long time ago. However, the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa and the Hamersley Range in Australia date back three to five billion years.

The WMNF is truly a place to be enjoyed by any and all who venture north. A hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail, which extends from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine, winds its way through and over peaks in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Eleven hundred miles of other trails make hiking in this preserve special. (My son, his wife and their four children, who are staying with us, spent one day climbing the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail, which begins near the base of Cog Railway, to the top of Washington.) It is the possibility of membership in New Hampshire’s uniquely restrictive 4,000 footers club – there are officially 48 peaks above 4,000 feet in New Hampshire – is one reason people return to the area year after year.

One of the more fascinating aspects of the White Mountains is the vegetation, and the changes one can see as one climbs through deciduous forests of Maple and Beech, to higher elevations, with Birch, Hemlock, Red Spruce and Balsam Fir, into what is known as the Upper Boreal Zone (4000 to 4400 feet), and finally into the alpine region above tree line. (In the Upper Boreal Zone is an interesting plant, Sphagnum Moss. It is a green, bog moss with the feel of a damp sponge. During the First World War this moss was used as a field dressing for open wounds because it was sterile and capable of absorbing up to twenty times its volume in liquids.) Once above tree line, ground cover includes various sedges, grasses and rushes, plants similar to those in the Arctic. Most peaks are windswept, thus devoid of any vegetation, apart from Lichens that bravely cling to rocks and survive extreme cold and heavy snows.  Clouds, which cover the Presidential Range 60% of the time, mean that moisture is greater the higher one climbs. Nevertheless, the soil is more acidic and contains fewer nutrients, as the mist washes restoratives down the mountain.

As a National Forest, the White Mountains may be selectively logged, but its real purpose is as a place to be enjoyed by people for the beauty of its peaks, gorges and vistas – to be at one with nature. Sitting on a ledge between Adams and Jefferson looking into the Great Gulf, or standing atop Madison looking south and west toward Washington one is reminded of man’s relative insignificance. While there are wild animals like moose, black bears, white tail deer and even the occasional bob cat, the risk to campers and hikers is the vastness of its space and, more especially, the weather. It is easy to get lost if one wanders off the trail, and the weather, especially above tree line, can change quickly. While mountains like the Matterhorn, K2, Mount Blanc, or even Mounts Rainier and Hood in the U.S. are far higher and more difficult climbs, Mount Washington consistently ranks among the deadliest. That is because it gets more visitors, and hikers become surprised by high winds and low temperatures. Its modest height of 6,288 feet belies the ferociousness of its weather. Average wind speeds are in excess of 40 miles per hour, with a record wind gust of 231 miles per hour recorded in April, 1934. Temperatures in July and August average in the mid 40s, with frequent dips below freezing. More than 130 people have died on the mountain, generally because they were unprepared.

But on this trip we are staying at the Mount Washington Hotel, with its golf courses, hiking and riding trails, tennis courts and swimming pools. For a few pleasant days, it is a place to forget the 24-hour news cycle: The election, with the braggadocio that is Donald Trump and the stink that emanates from the dissembling and corruption that is Hillary Clinton; the persistent slaughter of innocents by those we dare not name; and political correctness – a guise in the form of feigned respect, but in reality an attempt to disparage independent thought.

As we turn from the majestic view and return to the rest of our family, I realize George was right. Before being named Eisenhower in 1969, the peak was known as Dome Mountain, and before that Mount Pleasant – two words that, when used as adjectives, were appropriate to our 34^th President. It makes me wonder: Where is a man like Ike today, and why, with mountains and ideals so high, have we descended so low?

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[1] In 2003, New Hampshire’s State legislature changed the name of Mt. Clay to Mt. Reagan. (The peak had been named for the 19^th Century Kentucky Senator Henry Clay.) The U.S. Board of Geographic Names, being politically coy, has so far refused to honor New Hampshire’s wishes, continuing to call the 5,533-foot peak Mt. Clay. It will surprise no one that I prefer New Hampshire’s choice.