Mount Washington, N.H., August 2003

Mount Washington, New Hampshire, is one of my favorite places, particularly so on a rare sunny day in mid-summer. Not only is Mount Washington home to some of the worst weather on Earth, it is also the highest point in the northeastern United States, with its summit at 6,288 feet above sea level. I don't have a record of how I got up the mountain this time, but I suspect I drove myself up the Auto Road.

Mount Washington is also the home of two radio stations, WHOM (94.9C Mount Washington) and WPKQ (103.7C North Conway); it was formerly the home of WMTW-TV (8 Poland Spring), Portland's ABC affiliate, and in the early days of FM, it was home to W39B (43.9 Boston), part of John Shepard III's FM relay network. Channel 8 left the mountain in 2002, and on February 9, 2003, its transmitter building burned to the ground, taking with it the electric generator that powered the entire mountaintop complex. See my June 2002 gallery for more background.

Also in 2003, on May 3, the stone structure known as “The Old Man of the Mountain”, on Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch State Park, collapsed, taking with it a symbol long associated with New Hampshire. On my way home from Mount Washington, I stopped in the notch to see what remained.