The White Mountain National Forest now has five permanently protected Wilderness Areas: the Pemigewasset, Sandwich Range, Presidential Range-Dry River, Great Gulf in New Hampshire and the Caribou/Speckled Mountain where the National Forest dips into Maine. New Hampshire conservationists have their eyes on two new wilderness areas, the Wild River Valley and the Dartmouth Range, and two wilderness extensions for the Sandwich Range and Pemigewasset Area. And they have built an effective coalition to make sure it happens.
About the White Mountain National Forest
New Hampshire residents have a strong connection to the land and that is nowhere clearer than in the current campaign for new Wilderness designations in the state.
New Hampshire's White Mountain National Forest is remarkable for a number of things: as the largest area of public land in New England; as one of the most popular forests in the entire National Forest System with over 7 million visitors per year; and, as a living testament to nature's resilience in this part of the world.
In the years between the Civil War and the turn of the last century, the lands that are now part of the National Forest were extensively clear-cut. Devastating forest fires followed, fueled by the enormous piles of downed wood left by the wasteful logging practices. But what was ecological disaster has become ecological wonder. A vibrant, regenerating forest surrounds visitors to the White Mountains. Rare alpine gardens greet those who brace themselves for a summit of Mt. Washington, the highest summit in the Northeastern US, and home to some of the most extreme weather in the world.
Signs, sights and sounds of wildlife are everywhere: moose, spruce grouse, migratory songbirds, coyotes, fisher, beaver, deer-sometimes tracks of rare pine marten and sightings of the northern goshawk. Along some river valleys there are still remnants of the original forest, reminders of what it all once looked like.
Restoration and Now, Protection
The forest is on the way to recovery. But its magnificent vistas and quiet streams are still threatened by pressure for increased logging and efforts to open the forest to dirt bikes. And the White Mountains are just a day's drive from the East Coast megalopolis. Additional Wilderness designations in the White Mountains will ensure that the process of recovery shifts seamlessly into a perpetuity of protection.
Only two percent of New Hampshire's land area is protected in the state's four Wilderness areas: the Pemigewasset, the Sandwich Range, the Presidential Range-Dry River, Great Gulf. A fifth wilderness in the Whites, Caribou/Speckled Mountain, lies just over the border in Maine.
An effective coalition of New Hampshire activists proposes the creation of two new Wilderness areas and sizable extensions to two existing areas.
New Wilderness Areas
Wild River: New Hampshire conservationists have made protection of this 70,000-acre river valley a priority for over three decades. Wild River's interior valley, surrounded by high peaks, offers rare, sheltered lowland habitat for many of the shy and sensitive species that find a home in the White Mountains.
Dartmouth Range: Imagine a Wilderness area in the northeast with no trails at all. That's the Dartmouth Range in the northwestern corner of the White Mountains. Its 15,000 roadless and trail-less acres offer hikers an intense, solitary and untamed Wilderness experience.
And Bigger Wilderness Areas
Sandwich Range Wilderness extensions: The Congress designated the existing Sandwich Range Wilderness of 23,000 acres in 1984. Its gentle profile forms the southern viewshed of the White Mountain National Forest. New Hampshire conservationists propose to add 32,000 acres to the Sandwich Range protected area. The proposed additional wilderness would protect a number of historical and cultural resources as well as the area's ecological features.
Pemigewasset Wilderness extensions: The 123,000-acre Pemigewasset region is the behemoth of the roadless areas on the national forest. When the 45,000-acre Pemigewasset Wilderness Area was formally designated by Congress in 1984, many conservationists vowed to pursue additional protection for the lands adjacent to it because the extensive roadless area that encircled the oval-shaped wilderness area lay at the very heart of the forest.
The region's natural treasures are priceless. Its total acreage places it among the largest roadless complexes east of the Mississippi. The existing wilderness encompasses most of the watershed of the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River, ringed on all sides by peaks that exceed 4000 and in places 5000 feet.
The slopes show signs of a maturing forest after extensive logging 50 to 100 years ago-large woody debris, nurse logs, and an increasingly closed canopy sheltering a rich array of species. Wilderness extensions would protect the outer slopes of this river valley, connecting it to other large protected areas on the national forest, and eliminating the road building and logging that continue to fragment the outer edges of this extraordinary wild place.
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