White Mountain National Forest

The village of North Conway is tourist-oriented with shops, bars and restaurants. They even offer moose bus tours in the evening as there is an abundance of moose in this area and tourists are willing to pay $30 to hopefully see a real live moose ("96% success rate"). There are lots of roadside signs warning of "moose crossing" and "hundreds of collisions" but we didn't see nor hit any thankfully.

Apart from touristy North Conway is the beautiful and rugged White Mountain National Forest. There are serious hikers here and the 6288 foot Mount Washington, the highest peak in the NE USA, is considered one of the 10 most dangerous small mountains in the world. The weather at the summit is comparable to the Antarctic and has logged the highest wind velocity in the world at 231 mph! The Visitor Centre has a memorial to the 152 people who have died attempting to climb the mountain, often from hypothermia.

We continued to enjoy our short, scenic hikes! One of my favourites was Diana's Bath, a 1 km hike to a series of cascading waterfalls. We were well rewarded for enduring the heavy rainfall this week!Read more