Sunday, August 18, 2013

White Mountain National Forest

We headed to the White Mountain National Forest region with Rod and Tammy.  Our campground, White Birches, was smack dab in the middle of the forest.  We were now going on week 2 with no TV, no internet, and weak phone signal.  ;-)  I must admit, it is kind of nice!
Our sites at White Birches
We set out one day on the Presidential Range Bike Trail.  Parts of this trail can also be used by four-wheelers but we chose the "bike only" part.  It was a nice, easy trail with some picturesque spots!
Dan and Rod at the river's edge 

Watch for bulldozers?!  Wow!
Another day, we set out to do several smaller hikes.  We drove to Pinkham Notch.....
and could not believe the mass amounts of people.  We knew we got a late start but there were tons of people everywhere!  We stopped by the Visitor Center, got our bearings, and off we went.  The first trail we went on led to Mt. Washington...the highest peak east of the Rockies.
We would not be hiking that far! 

Crystal Cascades

Thumbs up on waterfalls!
We headed back down the trail and across the street to this....
Whoop whoop!
Since I was a teenager, I have wanted to hike part of the Appalachian Trail.  Today was the day! I was so excited!  The trail paralleled this stream.
Water was crystal clear

What an interesting sight...this tree grew around the rock.  Amazing! 
We stopped for lunch at this spot and just took in the views....

It was the perfect place for a picnic lunch.  We still had more trails we wanted to hike so off we went....
Yep - we need to go this way!
Our destination on this trail was Glen Ellis Falls.  The falls "fall" 64 feet and over 600 gallons of water fall every few seconds.
Glen Ellis Falls
View from right before the falls
We had a great time exploring the White Mountain National Forest with Rod and Tammy.  We both left the same day; they were headed to Pennsylvania and we were headed to Vermont.   We know that we will be back to do some serious hiking!

5 comments:

  1. WOW, really glad to hear from you two. Looks like Moosehead Lake and White Mountain NF have to go on the list of places to visit!! You found some wonderful trails and waterfalls:o)) Really proud to see you go to the top of the Fire Tower...you go girl!!!

    Enjoy Vermont and know we miss our hiking buddies;o))

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  2. I see you're headed to VT, we met your friends Gail & Rick when they were here on their aborted trip to see all of you in ME. Have enjoyed your blog and travels, since we've visited Acadia and other parts of ME it was nice to go back there through all the different blogs. Safe travels...

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  3. Looks like the fun continues! When go back to New England, and we will, we'll have to stop by there.
    Syl

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  4. How cool to hike part of the Appalachian trail! I'm thinking I might have gone through internet withdrawal though :)

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  5. Beautiful falls pictures Tricia. We loved Vermont when we were there too. Definitely a return to place. So nice that you have friends to visit there. The longest section of the AT runs through Virginia not very far from our farm and I've hiked a lot of it over the years (it's where I broke my ankle unfortunately). But I've always wanted to do a through hike. Don't think that's going to happen now but I loved seeing you so excited about hiking part of it. Makes me think maybe I'll do sections of it in other states too. Thanks for the idea.

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