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Dwight Peck's personal website Mr
Peck goes to [Mt] Washington [again] for the views, the fresh air, and the soot
The Ammonoosuc
Trail, up the waterfalls from the cograil train station on the
west side of Mt. Washington, is one of the most beautiful hikes in New Hampshire's
Presidential Range. From the rail station at 792 meters, it proceeds (like all
Mt Washington trails) up very steep rocky forest, and then along an active waterfall
to the Lake of the Clouds hut at 1540 meters. Thence, if you are so in the mood
to, you can carry on above tree-line to the summit of Mt Washington at 1917 meters.
Of course,
did you know? you can also drive your automobile up from the other side of the
mountain, though it won't thank you for it (though the petrol station will do!).
But spare your SUV! Take the train. That's right,
take the train.
This
scenic little Environmental Horror
has been plying its trade up the west side of Mt Washington since the 1890s, and
evidently no one in New Hampshire has yet thought to put some sort of muzzle on
that smokestack. Wherever you may be on the massif of the Presidential Range,
when this baby gets the steam up, you can orient yourself by the dense black plume
in the sky.
This is the base station
on the Mt Washington cograil line. The passengers are fully loaded, sitting forward
in their little folding chairs eagerly anticipating a mountain adventure. Let's
climb the mountain!!
And off they go, bound
for the summit. It's widely understood in Republican New Hampshire that Vice President
Dick ("Richard") Cheney prefers breathing the effluvia of fossil fuels
to real air, so in the New 9/11 Patriotic Dispensation,
there's not much motivation here to draw the environmental line anywhere we're
likely to find it.
Mr Cheney, the Invisible
V-P, would doubtless feel right at home here, on the west side of Mount Washington,
carrying on in a great albeit carcinogenic American tradition.
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rights reserved, all wrongs avenged. Posted 23 December 2001, revised 13 January
2007, 1 September 2014.
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