Wednesday, June 17, 2015

New Hampshire, Rumney - Wednesday, June 17, 2015 - Kancamangus Highway scenic drive


Monday and Tuesday were pretty crappy days as far as the bikers here in the campground were concerned.  Weather was in the low 50’s and either very overcast or raining.  Top that with no TV reception because of all the mountains and trees surrounding us and everyone pretty much had cabin fever by this morning.  The weather report was for nice sunny weather so bikes were headed out of here early this morning – including us.  Here we are at Pemigewasset Overlook in the White Mountains National Forest.  The ride today was wonderful so brace yourself for lots of pictures – I even managed to get some good ones going down the road.
 
 
Yesterday there was a period in the afternoon when the sun tried to come out.  We took advantage of that brief window and took a walk along the trail to Baker River that runs along the campground.
 
 
This bridge over the river pretty much heads nowhere, it looks like it used to be a railroad bridge but the railroad is long gone.
 
 
Baker River looks to be a little low but we see a lot of people in and out of the campground with kayaks and canoes so it must be deep enough in most places.
 
 
 
By the time we were heading back to the campground the clouds were setting in again giving the windmills up on the mountain an eerie look.
 
 
There are lots of ski resorts in this area of New Hampshire, I think something I read said there were 131 of them.  When we reached this one we knew we had missed our turn for the Kancamangus Highway.
 
 
Greg asked if I wanted to stop at one of the restaurants back in Lincoln, where we were supposed to turn, and eat lunch.  Sounded good, I envisioned one of the rather quaint ones with some local flair.
 
 
Nope, he was looking for a McDonalds.  All I can say is I might have been preaching the “no high fructose corn syrup and less red meat” routine a little too strong lately J
 
 
Like I said before, the day and the ride were beautiful.  These were all taken as we went down the road.
 
 



I think Greg enjoyed the challenges of this road – something different than the straight ones we have been on lately.  There were some long sweeping curves.



Some S-curves.
 
 
Even a hairpin curve.
 
 
And, steep downgrades.  I think we hit a bump as I was trying to take the “9% downgrade” picture.
 
 
We pulled into the White Mountain National Forest Pemigewasset Overlook to get some better pictures.  I told Greg when I look at things like this I just want to say, “Lord, you did good”.  What an awesome sight!
 
 
The White Mountains are part of the Appalachian chain created when the African and North American continental plates collided 400 million years ago.
 
 
Heat and pressure from the colliding continents melted existing rocks to form New Hampshire’s famous granite.
 
 
When we reached Conway at the other end of the Kancamangus Highway we turned around and came back.  This time we stopped at Lower Falls Scenic Area.  Lots of other bikers had the same idea.


I think it is the Swift River that runs alongside the Kancamangus Highway.  I noticed as we rode along the whole river is full of big boulders and the banks are lined with trees – a recipe for lots of log jams, but I didn’t see any.  Someone must work really hard to keep this river beautiful.







People are allowed to swim in this area of the river, I had to work hard to keep them out of the pictures.  I kept this guy in the picture so you could get an idea of how large these boulders are.


The water is just perfectly clear.
 
 
This huge boulder is up on the shore.
 
 
As we were coming home I glanced up and saw what looked like a rainbow around the sun.  I didn’t want to stare into the lens to get a picture of the sun so I just held the camera up and clicked – pretty good result!!
 
 
We noticed as we rode today there were lots of small motels and cabins, something you don’t see at home in Indiana.


We loaded the bike when we got home, we’ll be leaving here tomorrow morning heading to Maine.

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