Part of my Life Quest is to touch the water in every National Wild & Scenic River. There is so much out there to see and experience, and I figure this part of my quest will bring me to little areas appreciated and used by the locals. America is wide and beautiful and gorgeous, and there is so much to appreciate about all its landscapes; I will never be bored during this quest.
I need to live and mainly stay in New Hampshire until both my daughters have left for college and until my one remaining cat has died (our two other cats passed away this last year – one of kidney disease and one of extremely old age – RIP Papato and Lincoln, we love you very much). After that, I am responsible for just myself, and I will take to the trails fulltime.
There is plenty to do here in New Hampshire, and in Vermont, Maine, and Massachusetts as day trips or easy overnights in the meantime, so this Quest doesn’t have to totally be put on hold until I am on my own. It will just go very slowly for the next couple of years. This summer I hope to finish hiking all the trails in the White Mountains of NH, a goal I have been pursuing for years…and then after that, my attention will shift 100% to this Life Quest of mine.
Back to the present – I needed to get my car serviced, so I chose a dealership location close to one of NH’s two designated Wild & Scenic Rivers, Lamprey River. There are many little sites to see and experience along the Lamprey River; I chose the Wiswall Falls Mill Site in Durham. It has a little parking area that can hold five cars/trucks, and there are signs up and down the street warning people to not park on the road (I guess this is a popular site on weekends in good weather).
It was just me and a forest service crew – the crew was doing something at the dam. I walked the path a little ways and saw some of the ruins from the mill days. This area, like many others close to water in New England, was a thriving mill site in the 1800s. The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, a fact I did not know until I was there reading the sign at the kiosk.
Below are some photos I took. This is obviously a decent fishing area, given the “flybrary” posted at the trailhead. Lots of little paths branch off from the main path and lead directly to the river, so it was easy for me to stick a hand in. There is a nearby bridge where the locals apparently jump into the water during the summer, given the signs that are posted warning people of the dangers of doing that. In addition to the dangers posted on the signs, the dam is right there, just downstream of where people apparently jump in…so it would be a nasty accident to jump in and then get swept over the dam. No one was doing anything like that today, though – it’s too chilly for swimming during April in NH.
