The wagon-road from Mount Washington summit down to the base, is on
the eastern side, and is a little more than eight miles long, with an
average gradient of one to eight, descending into the Glen and
displaying magnificent views. The descent occupies about one hour, and
the ascent five hours. On the southeastern side of the mountain is
Tuckerman's Ravine, a huge gorge enclosed by rocky walls a thousand
feet high. This ravine usually displays the "Snow Arch" until late in
August, formed by a stream flowing out from under the huge masses of
snow piled up in winter, until it gradually melts away and collapses.
The main Glen is formed by the deep and thickly-wooded Pinkham Notch
at the eastern base of Mount Washington, its floor being at two
thousand feet elevation, and this Notch continues north and south in
deeply-carved stream beds, the Peabody River flowing northward to the
Androscoggin at Gorham and the Ellis River southward to the Saco. The
Peabody descends rapidly to the Androscoggin, entering it at about
eight hundred feet elevation, the active town of Gorham being located
here in a beautiful situation, and having two thousand people, at the
northern gateway to the White Mountains. The Androscoggin, having
drained the eastern mountain slopes, flows away into the State of
Maine to seek the Kennebec, and thence the sea. In the Glen, in the
coaching days, the old Glen House was the headquarters at the foot of
the road down Mount Washington, but it was burnt in 1894, and has not
been rebuilt. To the eastward, bounding the Glen, rise the Wild Cat
Ridge and the impressive Carter Dome, which would be a grand mountain
elsewhere, but here is dwarfed by the overshadowing Presidential range
on the western side. From the Pinkham Notch the little Ellis River
goes southward, and below the outlet of Tuckerman's Ravine is the
beautiful Crystal Cascade, where it pours down eighty feet over
successive step-like terraces. Another lovely cataract it makes is the
Glen Ellis Fall, which is considered the finest in the White
Mountains, on the slope of the Wild Cat Ridge. The stream slides down
an inclined plane of twenty feet over ledges, and then falls seventy
feet through a deep groove, twisted by bulges in the rocks and making
almost a complete turn. Thus sliding, foaming and falling, the
stream leaps nearly a hundred feet into a dark green pool beneath. The
Glen broadens as it progresses southward, and soon becomes a widened
intervale, having many houses for summer boarders.
[Illustration: _Log Bridge over the Wild Cat, near Jackson, N. H._]
Here is the pleasant village of Jackson in a broad basin, surrounded
by low mountains, making splendid views in all directions. There are
the Tin, Iron, Thorn and Moat Mountains, with others, the intervale
being almost covered with hotels, boarding-houses, and the accessories
of a popular summer resort, and having pretty cottages perched on the
hill-slopes all about. This pleasant resting-place was originally
called New Madbury, but at the opening of the nineteenth century it
was named in honor of President John Adams. It continued contentedly
as Adams until his son John Quincy became President, and in 1828, when
politics ran high and John Quincy Adams was again a candidate, it
happened that all the votes in the town of Adams but one were given to
his competitor, Andrew Jackson, who was elected, whereupon the town
changed its name to Jackson. Since then it has had a quiet history
excepting once, when, in 1875, they were building the railroad through
the White Mountain Notch, and the bears, scared by the powder-blasts
of the builders, came in droves to Jackson and almost captured the
town from the frightened inhabitants. Just beyond Jackson, in Lower
Bartlett, the Ellis flows into the Saco in a magnificent environment,
the Ellis and the Eastern Branch from the Carter range coming in
together, and making the Saco a great river. This is another paradise
for the seeker after the picturesque. From the little church of the
village, looking down over the Saco intervales, when flooded with
sunset light, gives a most fascinating view. An enraptured visitor has
written of this landscape seen from the church door: "One might
believe that he was looking through an air that had never enwrapped
any sin, upon a floor of some nook of the primitive Eden." Bartlett
was named in honor of Josiah Bartlett, a signer of the Declaration of
Independence, and its pioneer settler, John Poindexter, came eighty
miles on foot through the wilderness from Portsmouth, dragging his few
household effects on a hand-sled, his wife riding an old horse, with
the feather-bed for a saddle, and carrying the baby in her arms.
The Saco Valley broadens below, and Intervale, another summer village,
is passed, and then North Conway, one of the most popular of the White
Mountain resorts. It spreads along a low sloping terrace on the
eastern verge of the widening valley, and looks out upon the river
with the elongated and massive ridge of Moat Mountain grandly rising
beyond. The town is largely built along a pleasant tree-bordered
street, having the Presidential range spread in magnificent array to
the northwest, sixteen miles away. To the southward the valley opens
over long stretches of fertile lowlands until the Saco turns sharply
to the eastward, seeking the sea. To the northward, the immediate
guardian of the valley is Mount Kearsarge, sometimes called Pequawket,
rising thirty-three hundred feet. Kearsarge means the "pointed pine
mountain," and its name was given the famous warship which fought and
sunk the privateer "Alabama." It is the beauty of the surroundings
which gives North Conway its charm, and the valley is called the
"Arcadia of the White Hills," where the harshness of the granite
ramparts beyond are in strange contrast with the genial repose of
these meadows, and the delicate curves of the long, swelling hills.
The restfulness of the scene is its attraction, everything
contributing to its serenity; even distant Mount Washington is said to
"not seem so much to stand up as to lie out at ease across the north;
the leonine grandeur is there, but it is the lion, not erect, but
couchant, a little sleepy, stretching out his paws and enjoying the
sun." Proud Chocorua, which is not far away, is also said to even
appear "a little tired," as seen from North Conway, and as if looking
wistfully down into
"A land
In which it seemed always afternoon."
These Conway intervales of the Saco were the Indian valley of
Pequawket, and its people have long been known as the Pigwackets. An
Indian village first occupied the site of North Conway, gradually
giving place to the rude huts of the colonists. It progressed greatly
by the trade through the mountain district, before the advent of the
railway, and was the chief stage-coach headquarters in those days. Now
it is quiet and restful, the excitements of the coaching times being
gone. Three miles below, the magnificent valley makes its grand bend
to the eastward, and the swelling Saco flows out through the State of
Maine and to the sea at the twin towns of Saco and Biddeford.