The Hairpin & the Hancock Overlook — a stop on the Kancamagus Highway.
Slow down — the road is about to do the most dramatic thing it does all day. Coming up is the big sweeping hairpin, the tightest bend on the highway, where the road doubles back on itself to gain the height it needs for the climb to the pass. Take it easy through there; it comes up faster than you expect, and it's a favorite spot for photographers to be standing where they shouldn't.
Right at the bend is the Hancock Overlook, and it's worth pulling in. The view opens west and north across the drainage you've just driven up, and the mountain filling the skyline is Mount Hancock — named for John Hancock, the man with the famous signature. Behind it lies the Pemigewasset Wilderness, that roadless forty-five thousand acres, and from up here you can see the sheer SIZE of it: ridge behind ridge behind ridge, with not a roof or a wire or a road anywhere in it.
This is also where you really feel the climb. We've gained a good deal of elevation since Lincoln, and if you step out you'll notice the air is cooler and smells different — more balsam, less warm leaf. In late September the color up here can be a full week ahead of the valley floor.
From the overlook the road keeps winding upward toward the height-of-land. Watch your speed on the bends, use the pull-offs rather than stopping in the road, and keep climbing with me.