New Hampshire
New Hampshire has 1300 lakes or ponds and about 40 rivers with a total milage of about 41,800 miles. Most of the White Mountain National Forest, including the Presidential Range, is in New Hampshire. The highest point is Mount Washington at 6,288 feet. New Hampshire is the origination of five of the great streams of New England. The Connecticut River rises in the north; the Pemigewasset River starts in the Profile Lake in the Franconia Notch and joins the Winnipesaukee at Franklin to form the Merrimack River; the Cocheco and Salmon Falls rivers join at Dover to form the Piscataqua River; and two of the principal rivers of Maine, the Androscoggin and the Saco, have their beginnings in northern New Hampshire.
New Hampshire is heavily forested with an abundance of elm, maple, beech, oak, pine, hemlock and fir trees. Mount Washington features rare alpine plants such as Greenland sandwort, Labrador tea, alpine bearberry, dwarf cinquefoil and dwarf birch, willow and balsam fir. Among native New Hampshire mammals are the white-tailed deer, muskrat, beaver, porcupine and snowshoe hare. Threatened animals include the pine marten, arctic tern, purple martin, peregrine falcon, whip-por-will and osprey. The karner blue butterfly, lynx, bald eagle, shortnose sturgeon, Sunapee trout, Atlantic salmon and dwarf wedge mussel are on the State’s endangered species list.