On Top of the World Among the White Mountains

Perch yourself alongside the quaint old inn at the summit of this mountain, tallest in the Northeast, and let your eyes take in the panorama: five New England states, the Atlantic Ocean and the Canadian province of Quebec.

Tour the kitchen, inspect the sea of gleaming silver and copper chef’s tools hanging from the ceiling and head for the front desk.

Sorry, but you can’t stay here anymore.

The old inn is a museum now. And just as well. It has no plumbing, no privies. For the last word in luxury, try the Mt. Washington Hotel & Resort at the base of the mountain. You can easily spend $300 a night for a double, and the hotel is booked for months in advance. Why?

P. T. Barnum had the answer. He called the view “the second greatest show on earth.”

Mt. Washington, at 6,288 feet, is the queen of the White Mountains, long a playground for New Englanders and, during ski season, for Europeans as well.

New Yorkers have discovered the area, and it’s beginning to boom. Condominiums are on the rise, and the nation’s longest row of outlet stores extends for miles along New Hampshire 16.

As you tour the 2,600-acre Mt. Washington Hotel & Resort you’ll find golf courses, tennis courts, bridle trails and ballrooms, a conservatory, a library, a playhouse and even a fully stocked trout stream.

You’ll need hiking boots to go from one end of the lobby to another, and, if you’re really in shape, 35 hiking trails await you outdoors. Seventeen-piece bands play the sounds of Glenn Miller, Count Basie and the Dorsey Brothers. There’s a disco, too. And for the very young, a playground. They try to please everyone here, or at least everyone who has $300 to spend on a double room.

Please, no casual clothes. A jacket and tie are mandatory for dinner, and lunch is no shabby affair either. Even the kids on the playground dress like viceroys.

The main dining room is octagonal, supposedly so that no one will be seated in a corner. That’s how industrialist Joseph Stickney, who built the hotel in 1902, explained it.

Each evening’s menu is printed on an antique water-powered press. Your china, silver and stemware are worth more than you are. Once they served the most powerful financial titans on Earth, when the Bretton Woods Monetary Conference was held here in July, 1944, replacing the pound with the dollar as the cornerstone of international commerce.

For those of us who turn the dishes upside down and wonder who this Rosenthal guy was, the condominiums at Cathedral Ledge are our cup of tea. They, too, have views of mountains, rivers and forests, and a number of things that the Mt. Washington doesn’t. TV sets, for one. Barbecue grills, for another. You have to pay extra for a TV set at the Mt. Washington, but condos at Cathedral Ledge come with three.

For $730 a week at Cathedral Ledge you get luxurious sleeping quarters for eight, including a loft with a canopied rattan bed, three terraces, an indoor spa, dinnerware and silver service for eight, ultramodern kitchen with computerized microwave and exterior ice maker, a 12-speed blender and, of course, a corkscrew. You even get a library but, unfortunately, no books.

The main activities in the White Mountains are going up and going down. Skiers love it here in winter, and hikers year-round. Ride the ski lift up Mt. Attitash and zoom back down on the alpine slide. Hop onto the Skimobile at Mt. Cranmore and ride along a wooden trestle to the summit. Aerial tramways run all year at Cannon Mountain, Loon Mountain and Wildcat Mountain.

If your time is limited, try the Mt. Washington Auto Road first. On a recent visit I told my wife it would be a lot like Laurel Canyon. But I lied.

On the ascent it’s not too bad from the driver’s side, if you don’t mind battling ferocious wind gusts. From the passenger’s side, though, it’s a 2,000-foot drop to your right, and when the driver scoots over to let another car down, it’s time to pray.

As you wind up the mountainside the canopy of firs that arched overhead disappears, and the trees grow shorter and shorter. By 4,000 feet you see little except dwarf pines and spruces, stunted, runty trees, nature as a bonsai gardener.

Summit Attractions

At the summit you’ll find a cafeteria, an observatory and a museum chained and bolted to the Earth. Escape from the winds in the Sherman Adams Observation Center, named for a former New Hampshire governor who resigned from the Eisenhower White House in disgrace when he was revealed to have accepted a vicuna coat from Boston industrialist Bernard Goldfine.

No matter how warm you are at the base, bring your winter woollies for the top. It has snowed at the summit of Mt. Washington every month of the year.

And according to the “Guinness Book of World Records,” the fastest wind in world history, 231 m.p.h. on April 12, 1934, was recorded right here.

The road was built in 1861, much of it is gravel, and yes, you feel as if your car will be blown away. And thus you may find the Mt. Washington Cog Railway more appealing. This was the world’s first mountain-climbing cog railway, and today it’s the only one still powered entirely by steam. One trestle, called “Jacob’s Ladder,” climbs a 37% grade. This trip is very, very popular, and it’s wise to call for reservations.

For an entirely different kind of mountain-climbing experience, Mt. Attitash is the answer. Here you take a slow-moving ski lift to the summit and then plunge down three-quarters of a mile on an alpine slide.

Bracing Ride

An alpine slide is a chute through which hundreds of sleds carrying one rider apiece soar downhill as fast as gravity will let them. This can be terrifying for the novice, so there’s a brake lever that you can pull at will to slow your descent.

The problem is that the rider behind you may not feel like braking, and probably won’t. Make no mistake about it: This is a rowdy crowd. You may think of northern New Englanders as taciturn. Not at Attitash.

I looked on as one burly man in his mid-40s was hurled out of his sled and onto the ground after a small, freckled boy rear-ended him, and you may rest assured that the adult spared nothing of his vocabulary in berating the lad.

Shortly thereafter a senior citizen rear-ended a 5- or 6-year-old boy in mid-descent and sent the kid tumbling down the mountainside. The senior citizen found the boy bloody and bruised, and he pointed at him and laughed.

Attitash might seem like heaven for a Beverly Hills lawyer, but this is the “Live Free or Die” state. Nobody tells anybody what to do here. There’s not even a sales tax.

Another Attraction

Which brings us to another attraction of the White Mountains: outlet stores. Now, I’m not a shopper. In 30 years of heavy-duty traveling I’ve bought two suits in Hong Kong, a necktie in Filene’s basement in Boston, a shirt in Cannes, a bottle of flavored vodka in Leningrad, and that’s all. But on a two-mile stretch of New Hampshire 16 in North Conway I wore out the magnetic strip on my Visa card.

Neatly lined up all in a row are outlet stores for Calvin Klein, Hathaway, Gant, Benetton, Anne Klein, Alexander Julian, Danskin, Timberland, Reebok, Ralph Lauren/Polo, Leslie Fay, Manhattan, Van Heusen and dozens of others. Dishes, tableware and furniture too.

I found a huge rack of Hathaway and Ralph Lauren/Polo sport shirts for $2.88 apiece--first quality, usually about $25 retail--and my teen-age daughter, Natasha, bought even more of them than I did.

We snapped up Benetton shirts for $5 and $10, and my daughter bought a gold lame Danskin maillot for $5.98. She found a Madonna-style Danskin strapless bra--the kind you wear on the outside--for 99 cents, but Old Dad said nope.

It’s been a long day. You drove up Mt. Washington in the morning, headed out to Franconia Notch to see the Great Stone Face at lunchtime, shopped all afternoon, and now you’re hungry. The answer: Margaritaville.

In Glen, N.H., between Intervale and Bartlett, Margaritaville is as laid-back as any Mexican restaurant in Southern California, maybe more so. I phoned for dress code information, and the assistant manager said, “Yeah, we have a dress code. You must wear a tank top and cut-offs.”

If you still thought northern New Englanders were taciturn after your visit to Attitash, Margaritaville will change your mind. As you enter you will hear whooping from the lively bar area, and more than a little raucous merrymaking from the restaurant.

Mexican food in New Hampshire is a long way from home. The best item on the menu at Margaritaville is stir-fried chicken. What makes it Mexican is that it’s served with a tortilla. Your fellow patrons are convivial, and once they find out you’re from California they’ll pepper you with questions.

If you’re the one who’s taciturn, stay home. The White Mountains are for people who like to have fun.

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The Mt. Washington Hotel & Resort, Box SR, Route 302, Bretton Woods, N.H. 03575. Double rooms with two meals, $160-$320. Call (603) 278-1000.

Valley Vacations Condominium & Home Rentals, Box 39, Intervale, N.H. 03845. From $350 to $865 weekly. Call toll-free (800) 642-3377.

Mt. Washington Cog Railway, Route 302, Bretton Woods, N.H. 03589. Round-trip tickets $27, with discounts for children and seniors. Call (800) 922-8825.

Mt. Washington Valley Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 385VG, North Conway, N.H. 03860. Call (603) 356-3171.

White Mountains Visitors Center, Box 10MG, North Woodstock, N.H. 03262. Call (603) 745-8720.