Crawford Notch
- otomola
- Jul 4, 2025
- 4 min read
July1-3, 2025
I drove thirty-four miles from Dolly Copp to Crawford Notch State Park. The campground at Crawford Notch is called The Dry River Campground. Sure enough, there is a dry riverbed going right through the area, though by the looks of it, it is not always dry. It is dry now, but it is a riverbed of boulders of multiple sizes, something that is common to just about all the rivers I have seen in this area of New Hampshire and Maine. There must have been a lot of water flowing through this Dry River at some point to expose all these rocks.
The campground is smallish, having about thirty campsites on two loops. It is a densely wooded campground. There is very little area with exposure to sunlight, which I note as I utilize solar power to replenish my batteries. I did not obtain much energy from sunlight in my three day stay here.
Most of the sites are large and private. There are a few that seem to be joint sites, having one entrance for two adjacent sites. My site was one of those. My neighbors were a couple from Rhode Island, Toby and Mike. They were a friendly, upbeat, outdoorsy pair. They had kayaks, bicycles, and well-used hiking boots. They had a pickup truck with a pull behind tear-drop trailer. They used the trailer for weekend or weeklong trips, though they want to do some month-long adventures. We did not talk about work, but I’d say they were in their fifties, still worked, and simply have not been able to put together the time off to do so, yet. It’s in their field of vision.
I did bike rides on Wednesday and Thursday, riding north up the Notch, then down the other side far enough to get in thirty mile rides.
I stopped at the Mount Washington Hotel. It is one of those majestic, old hotels, like the Mohonk Mountain House in NY State. It is interesting to see places of this type from the perspective of architecture and style. The porches at Mt. Washington are huge, and I am impressed with the hanging baskets of flowers throughout. The views or Mount Washington and the Presidential Range of the White Mountains are fantastic. Of course, the views are fantastic right from the road, US 302, which is the main road here and the road on which the campground and hotel are located, ten miles apart.
The climb up Crawford Notch from the east/south side is about three miles long and gains 550 feet. There is one steep section about a mile long where one gains 400 of those feet. It has dramatic scenery, beautiful cliffs and rock escarpments lining the sides of mountains 4000+ feet. At the top there is just enough room for the two lane road and a set of railroad tracks to squeeze through. The tracks are used for The Mountaineer, a train for tourists coming up from North Conway to Crawford Notch. When the railroad was built, it was a major route between cities in New England and the Great Lakes.
There are some cliffs across the street from the campground named Frankenstein Cliffs.
Right away, I thought to myself, “How does this relate to Frankenstein, the monster character?” I figured there might be some prominence that looked like Frankenstein. But the actual story is found on a marker on the side of the road that refers to the Frankenstein Trestle, which was critical for the building of the railroad. I located it online, too, at the Historical Marker Database:
The high steel trestle above was built in 1893 to replace a wrought iron trestle of 1875, and was strengthened in 1930 and 1950. Named for American Artist Godfrey N. Frankenstein (1820-1873), the adjacent cliff and gulf were formidable barriers to completion of the Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad, later the Maine Central, which connected Portland, ME, and the Great Lakes. Trains used the trestle until 1983. It now carries excursion trains through Crawford Notch.
There is no cell phone reception at Dry River Campground, though there is a payphone! I am glad I did not have to use it, because I am not sure how it works in terms of adding money (quarters? How many do you need?). There were a couple advertisements stuck to the phone, and the name of the owner, but it seemed like a “try it and see” process.
In fact, there does not seem to be any cell phone access for at least ten miles in either direction from the campground. I obtained WiFi at the Mount Washington Hotel, ten miles from the campground. Today, I learned that the Highland Center has WiFi, only six miles from the campground. I am writing this post from there.
There are a great number of hiking trails in this area. I did not do any analysis but, based on the maps and the number of trailheads I saw while out riding, as well as the number of cars parked in various places, there is as much to do hiking here as there is at Pinkham Notch and the Mount Washington side of the Presidential Range. Crawford Notch is a very busy area.
I did look at a topographic map here and noticed there are a great many mountain peaks in New Hampshire that are over 4000’ high, forty-eight to be exact. Surprisingly to me, the people working at the Highland Center did not know how many of these peak are on the Appalachian trail. I counted and it appeared to be there are twenty-four on the actual AT. A list of the forty-eight peaks is available online, but I could not find a list of those on the AT.
I just talked with a few women from Montreal who are here about to embark on a three day trek through the Presidential Range. They are excited as well as a little apprehensive. They will start by hiking in at the Valley View Trailhead, camping near Mount Madison tonight, then transversing Madison, Adams, Washington, Eisenhower, and more! It sounds like a fun, challenging adventure. They are excited, too, that they are doing this trip without their kids which they said is a first time thing.
Comments