Vaughan to the White Mountains: New Hampshire's grand-hotel week by chauffeured car

The White Mountains, and the week

The White Mountains are New Hampshire's northern third — the Presidential Range with Mount Washington at 1,917 metres, the Northeast's highest and windiest summit, the notches the glaciers cut between the ranges, the national forest's eight hundred thousand acres, and the grand hotels of the 1900s that survived: the Omni Mount Washington at Bretton Woods, where the 1944 conference set up the World Bank and the IMF, and the Mountain View Grand at Whitefield. It is the foliage region of the American postcards — the Kancamagus Highway's thirty-four miles from Lincoln to Conway with no towns, the Franconia Notch Parkway under Cannon's cliffs — and a family region: the Cog Railway up Mount Washington since 1869, the Auto Road since 1861, Franconia Notch's Flume Gorge boardwalk and the Cannon Mountain aerial tramway, Story Land's storybook park at Glen, the Conway Scenic Railroad's steam trains, Clark's Bears, the Lost River's caves, and North Conway's outlets in a state with no sales tax. Vaughan families reach them through Quebec and Vermont in a day and a half and stay a week; the Visit White Mountains site has the region, and the border guide has the crossing.

The road, and the split

From Woodbridge the 401 to Montreal in five and a half hours, Autoroute 15 or 35 to the Lacolle or Highgate crossing, I-89 southeast through Vermont's Green Mountains past Montpelier to the Connecticut River at White River Junction, I-91 north to St. Johnsbury and I-93 south into Franconia Notch — eleven and a half hours by the estimate and twelve with the booth and stops, which no family does in a day: the split is Montreal at five and a half hours or Burlington at eight and a third, with the travel desk holding the night, and the second day arrives at the notch by early afternoon. The Sprinter carries a family and a week's bags; a family that continues to Boston after the week is two and a half hours south on I-93.

Franconia Notch: the Flume, the tramway and the Basin

Franconia Notch State Park is the region's front door: the Flume Gorge's two-mile boardwalk loop through an eight-hundred-foot granite chasm twelve to twenty feet wide with the waterfalls and the covered bridge — the family's two hours; the Cannon Mountain aerial tramway's eighty-passenger cabin to the summit's observation tower in seven minutes for the view over the notch and Vermont; the Basin's granite pothole beside the parkway; Echo Lake's beach under Cannon's cliffs; the site of the Old Man of the Mountain, the granite profile that fell in 2003 and whose memorial plaza lets visitors line up the steel profilers to see him again; and the New England Ski Museum at the tramway's base with Bode Miller's medals. The state park's site has the Flume's season, May to October, and the tramway's; Cannon is the winter's ski hill.

Mount Washington: the Cog and the Auto Road

The Mount Washington Cog Railway from the Marshfield base station at Bretton Woods climbs three miles at grades to thirty-seven per cent — the second-steepest rack railway in the world — in biodiesel locomotives and, on some trips, the 1869 steam engines, to the summit's Sherman Adams building, the weather observatory where the world's highest surface wind speed of 372 km/h was recorded in 1934, the Tip-Top House of 1853 and the view over five states and Quebec on a clear day, which is one day in three; the Cog's site books the three-hour round trip weeks ahead in October. The Mount Washington Auto Road from Pinkham Notch on the east side is the 1861 toll road of seven and a half miles to the summit — driven by the chauffeur in the SUV with the family at the windows and the "This Car Climbed Mt. Washington" sticker at the top, or ridden in the road's own guided vans — and a family does one or the other; the summit's weather changes in minutes and the family carries jackets in July.

The Kancamagus and the foliage

The Kancamagus Highway — Route 112 from Lincoln to Conway, thirty-four miles over the Kancamagus Pass at 2,855 feet with no gas stations, no towns and a dozen overlooks — is the drive the region is famous for: the Hancock and Pemigewasset overlooks, Sabbaday Falls' short trail, the Lower Falls' swimming holes, the Rocky Gorge, the Albany Covered Bridge, and in the first two weeks of October the maples' colour that fills the road with cars; a chauffeured family does it westbound at nine in the morning before the traffic, with the Sprinter at each overlook and lunch in Lincoln, and the national forest's site has the overlooks. Route 302 through Crawford Notch, Route 16 through Pinkham Notch and Bear Notch Road are the other foliage drives, and the Conway Scenic Railroad's Mountaineer train through Crawford Notch is the version without a road.

The children's mountains

Story Land at Glen, open since 1954, is the storybook park for children two to twelve — Cinderella's castle, the pumpkin coach, the Polar Coaster, the Bamboo Chutes flume, the antique cars, Humpty Dumpty at the gate — and a Vaughan family's full day with the park's site for the tickets; the Conway Scenic Railroad's steam and diesel trains from North Conway's 1874 station run the valley and the notch; Clark's Bears at Lincoln has the trained black bears' show, the Segway park and the White Mountain Central Railroad's covered-bridge ride; Santa's Village at Jefferson is the Christmas park open in summer; the Lost River Gorge's caves and boardwalks at Kinsman Notch are the eight-year-old's afternoon; and Diana's Baths' cascades near North Conway are the free swimming hole.

North Conway, the outlets and the food

North Conway is the region's town — the Settlers Green outlets and the strip's stores in a state with no sales tax, which makes the shopping arithmetic the Grove City post explains work here too, with the 48-hour CAD 800 exemption per person on the way home; the village's Zeb's General Store, the Met Coffee House, the Moat Mountain Smokehouse's brewpub, the Stairway Café; and the Cranmore Mountain ski area's summer mountain coaster above the town. Bretton Woods' Omni hotel, Jackson's Wentworth and Christmas Farm inns, the Mount Washington Hotel's neighbour the Lodge, and North Conway's inns are the week's beds.

The Omni Mount Washington Hotel

The 1902 grand hotel at Bretton Woods — white and red-roofed under the Presidentials, with a nine-hundred-foot verandah, the Great Hall's fireplaces, the Gold Room where the 1944 Bretton Woods conference's agreements were signed, the pools, the spa, the Bretton Woods ski area across the road (the state's largest) and the Cog's base station five minutes away — is the week's splurge for a Vaughan family that wants the White Mountains as the century saw them; the hotel's site has the rooms, which for the foliage weeks book in the winter, and the travel desk holds them.

The week, in shape

Saturday's drive to Burlington; Sunday I-89 and I-93 to the Omni Mount Washington by 1, the verandah and the pool, the Cog's afternoon trip at 3; Monday the Kancamagus westbound at nine, Sabbaday Falls, Lincoln's lunch, Clark's Bears; Tuesday Franconia Notch — the Flume at nine, the tramway at noon, Echo Lake, the Old Man's plaza; Wednesday Story Land's day for the children with one parent and the Auto Road for the other; Thursday North Conway's outlets, the scenic railroad, Diana's Baths; Friday the road home — I-93, I-91, I-89, the Lacolle crossing at 2 with the exemption, Montreal, the 401, Woodbridge by 10, or a Montreal night. Seven nights, the Sprinter on daily hire, one number in the booking engine.

What the chauffeur replaces

Eleven and a half hours each way through two provinces and two states as a driver, split over two days; the crossing; I-89's and I-93's mountain miles; the Kancamagus at nine in the morning with a family looking at the maples; the Auto Road's seven miles of grade, which the chauffeur drives so the family can look down; and the notches' lots in October. For a couple the trip is a car's; for a family of five with a week or two families in a Sprinter it is one fare and a parent on the Cog rather than the wheel.

Seasons

The first two weeks of October for the foliage — the Kancamagus, the notches and the Omni's verandah at their best and fullest, the hotels booked by the winter; summer for Story Land, the swimming holes, the Cog's clear days and the Auto Road; winter for Bretton Woods' and Cannon's skiing and the Omni's sleigh rides, with I-93 in snow the chauffeur's care; late May and June for the Flume's opening and the region before the crowds.

Pairing it

The White Mountains pair with Burlington and Stowe as the drive's splits and the two-state foliage week, with Portland, Maine ninety minutes east for the coast, with Boston two and a half hours south for a family that ends the week in the city, and with Montreal as the first night both ways.

The Cog's afternoon, in order

From the Omni's porte-cochère at 2:15 in the Sprinter: the Marshfield base station five minutes up the Base Road, the 3 p.m. departure's boarding, the hour's climb up Jacob's Ladder's thirty-seven-per-cent trestle with the brakeman's narration and the Ammonoosuc ravine below, the summit at four with the wind at seventy kilometres an hour on a clear July day, the observatory's museum, the Tip-Top House, the photograph at the summit sign with five states behind it, the hour down, the base at 6 and the Omni's verandah for the sunset on the Presidentials. Three hours, booked in the spring for October, and the Cog's site has the steam-engine departures that a train-loving child asks for.

Portland and the coast, ninety minutes east

The White Mountains end at Maine's border and the coast is ninety minutes further — Route 302 through Crawford Notch and the Maine lakes to Portland, the lobster and the lighthouses — and a Vaughan family that has done the mountain week adds two coastal nights before the drive home by the northern road, or ends in Boston two and a half hours south by I-93; the Portland post has the coast, and the two weeks together are the New England fortnight the Sprinter's daily hire is built for.

Costs, plainly

The White Mountains week is a daily hire in the booking engine with the split's nights; the Omni, the Cog, the Flume, the tramway, Story Land and the Auto Road's toll are the family's own, and the 48-hour CAD 800 exemption per person covers North Conway's untaxed outlets. Against the fare are twelve hours each way over two days through two provinces and two states as a driver, the crossing, the Kancamagus in October's traffic and the Auto Road's grades; a couple does this in a car, and a family of five with a week or two families in a Sprinter book it for one fare and a parent on the Cog rather than the wheel.

Booking it

Book a daily hire from your Vaughan address for the week with the split's nights; tell us the hotel, the Cog's date, Story Land's day, the seats, the bags and every passenger's citizenship for the crossing, and the chauffeur confirms the road and the plan the evening before with the summit's forecast on it.

Book the White Mountains week