Framedlight

  October was a good time to visit New Hampshire. The autumn colour was going strong. The weather was mild and the streams were full. Our final stops of the day were to some watery locations, not far from Pinkham Notch Visitor Centre. The first, the Crystal Cascades were well named and also quite peaceful with few people about. We followed the good path a short distance down from the car park to have a look at them. The water from the Ellis River falls a total of 100 ft in two stages. There is a bridge crossing the falls where you can look down on them. Further down stream on the Ellis River is Ellis Falls with a vertical drop of 64ft. This is only a short drive from the Crystal Cascades. It was then time to drive back to spend our last night in Huttopia. This time we spent even longer looking for our hut, as it was darker than the night before. We had bought sausages, and so we lit the camp fire and cooked them on the barbecue. By this time I had started to cough, but I tried to p...

 There are three ways to get up Mount Washington, if you are not being dropped from an airplane. The first is to walk, which we didn't have time for. The second is the very expensive cog railway tourist train and the third is by car on the Mount Washington auto route which is not cheap, but not out of the question. We opted for the latter. Mount Washington stands at 1917m. It was known by the indigenous people as Kodak Wadjoor (the top is hidden) or Agiochooke (place of the great spirit). A place so sacred that it should not be climbed. The first recorded ascent was by Derby Field in 1642, who surviving the experience, went on to explain to the Abenaki Chief Passaconaway that the gods were not critical of the white man's presence and thus enabled northern expansion of the colonists. It was developed for tourism in the mid 19h century, hence the cog railway and the coach road, but it is incredibly windy. The strongest wind in the world, aside from tornados and cyclones was recor...

We had a good night in Huttopia, our cornily named group of glamping huts. It was chilly at night although there was a heater on a 30 m inut e timer which you had to start again when it got to the end. Saving the planet! When we had arrived the night before it had meant some stumbling around in the dark to find the correct hut, and we had not seen the lake that the huts were camped round. I wandered down first thing and it was very pretty. You had to go outside anyway to put the kettle on the barbeque gas ring to heat up. But tea and breakfast finished we were off and away. We were situated in the White Mountains, a very large area area covering a quarter of the state of New Hampshire and going into Maine. The mountains are the northern extension of the Appalachians and contain Mount Washington, the highest mountain on the eastern seaboard. First stop after a little driving and a stop at Dunkin' for Mike's favourite iced coffee, was Jackson (population 1000), a quaint New Engla...