White Mountain National Forest

The White Mountain National Forest draws more visitors than almost any other wild landscape east of the Mississippi. It covers about 750,000 acres (3,040 km²) of northern New Hampshire and a corner of western Maine and is the only national forest in either state. Its centerpiece is the Presidential Range, where Mount Washington rises to 6,288 feet (1,917 m) and in 1934 recorded a surface wind of 231 mph (372 km/h). More than 1,200 miles (1,930 km) of trails, including over 100 miles (160 km) of the Appalachian Trail, cross its granite peaks and notches.

The forest exists because of clearcutting. By 1900 logging railroads had stripped the mountains, fires were burning the slash and silt was choking rivers that powered New England mills. Public outrage helped pass the Weeks Act of 1911, which let the federal government buy private land for national forests in the East, and the White Mountain National Forest was established in 1918. The regrown hardwoods now blaze each October along the Kancamagus Highway, and six wilderness areas, including the Great Gulf and the Pemigewasset, protect its wildest valleys.

• Mount Washington
  Home to "the world's worst weather" contains
• The Kancamagus Highway
  New England's classic fall-foliage drive contains
• Maine
  The Pine Tree State, rugged northeastern frontier located in
• New Hampshire
  The Granite State, home of the White Mountains located in
• The Appalachian Mountains
  The ancient, worn mountains of the eastern U.S. part of