I went to camp in New Hampshire, starting when I was 12 in 1962. It was an all-girls camp. Still is. Located on Newfound Lake in the Lakes Region in the foothills of the glorious White Mountains.
Wednesday was trip day. Often, that meant a hike. Mt. Cardigan. Mt. Mooselauke. Mt. Washington. I didn’t like it at all. We weren’t allowed to sit down or drink water. We campers believed it was possibly because the counselors thought if we sat down, we’d never get up to finish the hike. And if we drank too much water, we’d have to pee.
But somewhere along the line, I started to like hiking. Maybe it was the first time I climbed Mt. Washington. At 6288 feet, it is the tallest mountain in New England, not very tall by Rocky Mountain standards but challenging nonetheless in that the tree-line is at 4,000 feet, at which elevation the topography and weather become Arctic-like.
So, all my life, I have come back to New Hampshire to hike in the summer. To see the layers of mountains from a summit.
To explore the forests. To drive the billboard-less highways. To swim in the clear, clean water of Newfound.
To experience a place so different from my native New York City and my Bay Area home. To have my daughter grow up there and share my love of this special place.
New Hampshire is where my heart it.
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