The Overlooks at the Top

You're in the high country now, and this is where the pull-offs earn their keep. Along this stretch either side of the height-of-land you'll pass the best viewpoints on the entire highway, and I'd hate for you to blow by them at forty miles an hour.

Two of them sit close together near the top and look opposite ways. The Pemigewasset Overlook gazes back south and west over the drainage we climbed; the C.L. Graham Wangan Ground looks north into the heart of the Whites. Between them you get the full three hundred and sixty. A little further along, the Sugar Hill Overlook opens east over the Swift River valley we're about to descend into, with a gazebo to stand under.

Here's how to actually use them. Morning light is best on the eastward views; late afternoon light sets the western ridges on fire. In fall, look for the color LINE — because the cold arrives at altitude first, you can literally see the season creeping down the mountainsides, gold and scarlet up high with green still holding in the valleys below. And on a clear evening in autumn, this is one of the finest stargazing pull-offs in New England. There is no town for miles in any direction, no light dome, nothing — so the Milky Way comes out properly, the way your great-grandparents saw it.

Take ten minutes. Get out, let the wind get at you, and look at all that country. Then we'll start down the other side.