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Wild Highway: The Kancamagus

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(page 3 of 4)

The third member of this epochal trio was Oakleigh Thorne, who started into the wilderness from Conway on the east side. He was as different from the other two giants of the Pemigewasset as they were from each other; he was a cultured New York financier and a member of the Tennis and Racquet Club and the Westminster Kennel Club. He used to arrive in the North Country riding in a seat attached to the running board of his chauffeur-driven Packard roadster.

Mr. Thorne began work in 1906 and would eventually build 20 miles of track. However patrician and picturesque Oakleigh Thorne might have been, he was an absentee owner: He let work out to subcontractors, and his operations were so anonymous that local residents and imported workers alike spoke only of "the Company," the very model of a modern corporate life. This did not indicate a lack of character, however, and work habits were strictly enforced: One morning the foreman lit a stick of dynamite under his choppers' shanty to hasten their way out to the cuttings.

"The Company" ceased operations in 1916, the last of the rapacious Henrys was gone in 1917, and the saintly Saunders left their woods in 1927. Nature sees things in a longer span than we do. The railroad beds and skid ways laid out by Pork Barrel Dumas are still engraved on the land, and hikers still find iron artifacts remaining from those wilderness empires, but it is impossible to find any differences in the woods once claimed by such completely different men. Now it again belongs to hikers and hunters and fishermen, the same as before any of the timber barons began their immense work.

What the Locals Know

Sabbaday Falls and Bear Notch Road

At approximately the midpoint, about 20 miles east of Lincoln, look for a barely visible National Forest sign -- on the south side of the Kancamagus Highway -- marking the trailhead to Sabbaday Falls. A ten-minute hike on a gentle, wide trail leads to a striking flume and waterfall.

Walls of stone rise about 40 feet skyward, while below, water has carved a four-foot pothole at the base of the falls. There's a bridge crossing the falls that lets you watch the cascades gush down a granite chute.

From the Sabbaday Falls trailhead, it's about 15 miles to Conway, the eastern terminus of the highway. During peak foliage weekends, both Lincoln and Conway can be snarled with traffic; an escape route is Bear Notch Road (paved, but closed in winter), 21 miles west of Lincoln and 13 miles east of Conway.

The nine-mile road hooks up with Route 302 in Bartlett, passing through young forest, affording mountain views to the east, and bypassing some of the heaviest tourist traffic.

ESSENTIALS

Lincoln-Woodstock Chamber of Commerce, 800-227-4191, 603-745-6621. The information center at the Depot Mall on Main St. is also a reservation service for area lodging. lincolnwoodstock.com

Lincoln Woods, at Lincoln Woods Trail parking off Rte. 112, just east of the Loon Mountain main entrance. This comfy log cabin serves as a warming hut in winter and information center all year long. National forest rangers give personal advice about trails and campgrounds on the Kanc. hikenh.netfirms.com/TDLincWd.htm

White Mountain Visitors Center, 800-346-3687, 603-745-8720. P.O. Box 10, North Woodstock, NH 03262; at base of exit 32 off I-93. visitwhitemountains.com/visitor-center/default.aspx