The Old Man of the Mountain

The Old Man of the Mountain

Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about it, New Hampshire resident Daniel Webster bragged about it, and P. T. Barnum tried to buy it. The New Hampshire Department of Motor Vehicles had its image etched onto every state license plate, and the U.S. Treasury imprinted it on the New Hampshire quarter in 2000. But ultimately, the fate of the Old Man of the Mountain rested with Mother Nature, not with the human beings who so admired it. And it was Mother Nature who dismantled the vaunted rock formation, just as surely as it had created it eons ago.

Those persons fortunate enough to have driven along Interstate 93 through Franconia Notch during the days preceding the early morning hours of May 3, 2003, were the last ever to lay eyes on this naturally formed granite profile, actually a series of five granite ledges, that so defined New Hampshire. It truly did look like the profile of an old, craggy man gazing out over Franconia Notch, some 1,200 feet above Spirit Lake, toward the Presidential Range.

In all likelihood, the bitter-cold winter of 2002-2003, along with especially harsh winds and heavy rains the weekend preceding its fall, contributed to the demise of the Old Man. But, of course, the rocky promontory, which measured 40 feet from "chin" to "forehead," had withstood many brutal winters before this one -- geologists believe the formation dated back at least 200 million years. Native Americans passed along legends of the peculiar likeness to Europeans in the early 1600s, and surveyors working in the region first claimed to have "discovered" the Old Man of the Mountain in 1805.

For a short time after the Old Man collapsed, some lively debates ensued regarding how to handle the loss of one of the White Mountains' favorite tourist attractions -- one Connecticut businessman even proposed rebuilding the Old Man out of a patented polymer material. Most of the Old Man's fans, however, argued that any effort to reconstruct the formation would be an affront to its memory. And so it was decided simply to leave the remains of the formation as Mother Nature intended them.

Posted turnouts along Interstate 93's north- and southbound lanes still mark the parking areas where you can look up toward the Old Man's former perch. And at the Web page (www.franconianotchstatepark.com), you can admire an electronic "scrapbook" filled with remembrances from hundreds of saddened admirers.

-- Andrew Collins