Visit to The White Mountain, New Hampshire

The White Mountain is a 300 square mile (480 square km) area of a reserve forest. It is a collection of different small and huge mountain peaks of different altitudes. In short it is a heaven for campers and trekkers. For further geographic details you can refer this link. There are huge amount of tourists that flock the White Mountain during summer and winter every year. In winter lot of people come here for the skiing sport and in summer trekkers can hike the mountain right till its summit. There are other means of transport (drive road and rail) right till the summit for ones who are less enthusiastic about hiking/trekking.

As with any other tourist destinations in U.S. you would find numerous small towns on your way to this tourist destination as well. There are places where you can hang out for a will, have some food, check out local joints and then carry on with your journey to the final destination.

You also come across lot of small market places in towns which have local commodities on sale of course only during summers. For example you could find different house hold articles carved out of wood that can be used for decorating drawing room and many more such commodities. As I said these are local commodities which you won’t find in any other place.

My-self and Mr. Vikrant Gogri were running short on time and we were interested in catching the glimpse of summit view so we decided to take the drive road option till the summit. This was the best time to go to summit as it was summer and sky was pretty clear. There are numerous scenic points that you can halt and enjoy the view while you are driving on your way to summit.

You need to get an entry pass and a ticket before you start ascending the mountain. At the top of the summit there is an observatory which also provides food items for the visitors. The ticket is for a small exhibition come gift store that is present at the observatory. Best place to by any gift items that you want to take back. It is needless to say that the view from the summit is just amazing (if you are lucky enough to be present at the summit when the sky is clear).

The drive to the summit is less than 45 minutes. I would recommend that a trained driver should drive this route as it is a pretty steep climb even with road at some places and the road is quite narrow. The person driving should need to know when should s/he stop for the other vehicle to pass by. There also chances that your vehicle might slip due to rain water.

It is very important for you to know that the temperatures at the summit vary a lot and there are high velocity winds blowing all around. I would recommend one should wear a nice jerkin to protect himself from the drastic temperature changes. If you are lucky enough you might as well get a clear sunshine and an amazing view of the numerous valleys around the mountain ranges.

On your way back it would be wish to leave the summit before it is too dark. Officially the observatory starts closing by 6:00PM itself. Below are few of the clicks where trekkers started their descend and in other clicks you can see the train that one can use to descend the mountain.

Some trekker starting with their descend

Train descending from summit

Train descending from summit