This fully updated, comprehensive hiking guide is the most trusted resource available for hiking trails in the White Mountain National Forest. Includes three high-quality, GPS-rendered, pull-out maps.

The White Mountain National Forest and Great North Woods have been described as "nature's mammoth museum." This is a land of many lakes and rivers, mountains and waterfalls, and pristine natural splendor, abundant with historic charm. The White Mountain National Forest was established by presidential proclamation in 1918. It owes its existence to the passage of the Weeks Act of 1911, which enabled the federal government to purchase land and establish a national forest in New Hampshire's White Mountains. It is one of the most visited natural sites in the country, and tourists from all over the world make seasonal visits to this recreational haven. This book takes the reader on a historical journey through the national forest, including the majesty and grandeur of the Presidential Range, Great Gulf Wilderness, Pemigewasset Wilderness, and Sandwich Range Wilderness, as well as Franconia Notch, Pinkham Notch, Crawford Notch, and Great North Woods.

Built by James Everell Henry, the East Branch & Lincoln Railroad (EB&L) is considered to be the grandest and largest logging railroad operation ever built in New England. In 1892, the mountain town of Lincoln, New Hampshire, was transformed from a struggling wilderness enclave to a thriving mill town when Henry moved his logging operation from Zealand. He built houses, a company store, sawmills, and a railroad into the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River watershed to harvest virgin spruce. Despite the departure of the last EB&L log train from Lincoln Woods by 1948, the industry's cut-and-run practices forever changed the future of land conservation in the region, prompting legislation like the Weeks Act of 1911 and the Wilderness Act of 1964. Today, nearly every trail in the Pemigewasset Wilderness follows or utilizes portions of the old EB&L Railroad bed.

These compelling profiles of 22 adventurous yet unlucky climbers chronicle more than a century of exploration recreation and tragedy in New Hampshire's Presidential Range