NETrailhead: New Hampshire outdoors
About 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. New Hampshire, also known as the "Mother of Rivers", 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 mountains 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 has 1300 lakes or ponds and about 40 rivers with a total milage
of about 41,800 miles. The highest point is Mount Washington at 6,288 feet. 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.
More locations
Franconia Notch
White Mountains National Forest
Umbagog Lake Campground
Kancamagus Scenic Byway