I’ve realized that with its retail shops and various amusements meant to appeal from toddlers to octogenarians, the White Mountains can officially be dubbed the Disneyworld of the Northeast. Hey–in the winter, at least you can skate, ski, etc. You’re not stuck watching gator wrestlers. Locale-wise, having a Disneyworld here beats having been sprung from a swamp, as in Florida, or a ghetto, as in California.
Some have considered Disneyworld as a type of enforced concentration camp of fun–but one that costs lots of money. The White Mountains are more distributed–so one doesn’t feel too enclosed. The natural disgust I feel about a complex that is built with shoddy pseudo buildings as a shrine to the kiddie-id-pleasure principle doesn’t engorge me in New Hampshire. The hard granite surfaces of the mountains and cold climate offset it.
Then there are the vistas–the majestic views from Mt. Willard, the Zealand trail, from the porch of the Mt. Washington Hotel, to name a few of my favorites. And given it’s New England, it will always be understated–it won’t be over the top, self destructive and shamelessly hedonistic like Orlando. There was something there as a foundation–a bunch of Protestant puritans and not just gators. Their ghosts, real or imaginative hover to forbid the impious…. The mouse ears won’t cap Mt. Washington–at least, not anytime soon.
Marc Songini 