White Mountains

The White Mountains cover the rugged north-central country of New Hampshire, the region built around the highest peaks in the Northeast — Mount Washington at 6,288 feet and the Presidential Range running south from it. The terrain stacks dramatically from valley floors at 800 feet to summits above 6,000, with the Saco, Pemigewasset, and Connecticut rivers cutting through the valleys. The White Mountain National Forest covers nearly 800,000 acres of the region. Carroll and Grafton counties cover the region. Carroll holds North Conway and the Mount Washington Valley resort district; Grafton holds Hanover (with Dartmouth College and Hopkins Center for the Arts), Lebanon, Plymouth (Plymouth State University), Lincoln (the western gateway to the Kancamagus Highway), and Franconia. Mount Washington’s auto road and Cog Railway, Franconia Notch State Park (with the former Old Man of the Mountain), Crawford Notch, and the Kancamagus Highway carry most of the visitor weight. Most trips here run mountain-recreation focused. North Conway anchors the largest single-stream visitor traffic — outlet shopping, the Conway Scenic Railroad, and access to the Presidentials; Lincoln and Loon Mountain handle ski-resort visits; Hanover runs the college-town itinerary at Dartmouth; the Kancamagus Highway through the National Forest pulls fall foliage traffic each October.