Alpine Garden Trail - Mount Washington, NH

I wasn't up to hiking all of Mt. Washington this trip, and the weather wasn't being cooperative, so we decided to drive up to the top and hike around a little bit from there.

The summit was in the clouds when we got there, so we drove back down the auto road a few minutes to get out from under the clouds. There's a small parking area next to the trail head to access the Alpine Garden.

You have to climb down (and eventually back up) a very steep staircase of boulders to get to the relatively flat Alpine Garden Trail. The trail continues across to a viewpoint overlooking Tuckerman Ravine.

Big Rock Campground (White Mountain Forest)

Overall Rating (1 to 10) : 6.5

Location: near Lincoln, NH

Big Rock campground is off the Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains National Forest. The sites are large, well spaced and wooded, and the campground is only a ten minute drive from Lincoln (on the west end of the Kancamagus). There's plenty of hiking in all directions, though there aren't any trails directly out of the campground.

The campground is very pretty and appears well-maintained, though rustic. For facilities, Big Rock only has pit toilets, which was a bit of a let down after Dry River campground, which had hot running water and showers (for the same price). But I still enjoyed it here and would come back. I liked the way the sites were terraced on the mountainside -- most of the sites are accessed by a short staircase up or down the slope, which made it feel more private. You can hear some road noise, but I hardly noticed it, and our site was one of the closest to the road.

Dry River Campground (Crawford Notch)

Overall Rating (1 to 10) : 10+

Location: Crawford Notch State Park, NH

Dry River Campground is great. You can't beat the location, nestled in Crawford Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The park is surrounded on all sides by national forest, so it feels very remote and wild (though it's only a 20 minute drive to Littleton or North Conway). The sites are huge and spaced far apart, and the facilities are awesome (hot water, flush toilets, showers, and even laundry machines!) For $18/night (off-season), this place is a great deal. We've paid the same for campgrounds with much less to offer.

The Dry River trail starts at the campground and connects up with the AT on its way to Mount Washington. We hiked up it about 2 miles to a washed out suspension bridge (you can still get across by scampering over the river rocks). There's a nice view on the way of Mount Washington, as seen from a distance.

From the campground you get a nice view of Frankenstein Cliff across the street. The only very small downside is that you can hear a bit of road noise, but it's still very quiet and the forest absorbs most of the sound. Just up the road from the campground there's a cafe/gift shop and an information cabin run by the park.