4 Best Sights in Bethel, Western Lakes and Mountains

Space rocks, Maine mineralogy, and western Maine's mineral and gem mining legacy converge at this impressive interactive 15,000-square-foot museum—unexpected for a town Bethel’s size. Surrounding the handsome structure that joined two Main Street buildings is a garden with large rocks, some resembling modern sculpture and all placarded with interesting facts about their origins, etc. Opened in 2019, the two-story museum has 19 exhibits in four galleries. Kids love the simulated mining blast, part of an exhibit on gem discoveries and mica and feldspar mining in the Bethel area. The museum's collection includes 37,940 mineral specimens, many Maine-mined. A replica of a Maine mineral store, once a tourist hot spot, showcases prized specimens. In the Hall of Gems (and the gift shop!), jewelry featuring Maine's famed pink and watermelon tourmaline, and other gems bedazzles. The Space Rocks gallery darkens every half hour for a 3D film that beams about as if a meteorite shower has blown up the walls, revealing Bethel. Strikingly displayed is a famed meteorite collection: the museum has the world's "largest known" pieces of the moon and Mars and more lunar meteorites than other museums combined. Visitors can hold a space rock, and scientists relate interesting facts via life-size videos as though they were in the room. Off the gift shop, the free Discovery Gallery has changing exhibits and drawers with minerals, rocks, and fossils. Check the website for events like the summertime outdoor sluice.

Grafton Notch Scenic Byway (Route 26) runs through its namesakes—the park and the notch—at the northeastern reach of the Mahoosuc Range (White Mountains). A favorite fall foliage destination stretching along the Bear River valley 14 miles north of Bethel, it's a short walk from roadside parking areas to the waterway's distinctive Screw Auger Falls, which drops through a gorge, creating pools (.4 mile trail network); V-shaped Mother Walker Falls (.2 mile round-trip); and Moose Cave, a feature of another gorge (.4 mile loop trail; watch for slippery rocks). Also aside the road: the nicely shaded Spruce Meadow picnic area and the trailhead for the Appalachian Trail, the departure point for day hikes that follow or incorporate it. Table Rock Loop Trail (2.4 miles round-trip; moderate) rewards hikers with views of mountains and the notch from a ledge. More challenging is the 7.6-mile round-trip trek (advanced) via the AT to the viewing platform atop 4,180-foot Old Speck Mountain, one of Maine's highest peaks. Some of the AT's toughest sections run through Grafton Notch and 31,764-acre Mahoosuc Public Land, whose two tracts sandwich the park, offering stunning, if strenuous, backcountry hiking (also backcountry campsites). In winter, the park's snowmobile trail along Bear River is popular; ungroomed trails draw snowshoers and cross-country skiers.

Built in 1872 and pedestrian-only since 1958, the most painted and photographed of Maine's nine covered bridges can be found north of Bethel in neighboring Newry. From U.S. 2, turn onto Sunday River Road (watch for signs; stay to the right at the "Y" intersections). The 87-foot-long Paddleford truss bridge is aside the modern one that handles road traffic these days. A popular swimming spot, folks put in by the old wood bridge or follow the path from its south end to a bend in the river.

This forest straddles New Hampshire and Maine, with the highest peaks on the New Hampshire side. The Maine section, though smaller, has magnificent rugged terrain. Hikers can enjoy everything from hour-long nature loops to a day hike up Speckled Mountain. The mountain is part of the 14,000-acre Caribou-Speckled Mountain Wilderness Area, one of several in the forest, but the only one entirely within Maine. The most popular Maine access to the national forest is via Route 113, which runs south from its terminus at U.S. 2 in Gilead, 10½ miles from Bethel. Most of Route 113 is the Pequawket Trail Maine Scenic Byway—the section through the forest is spectacular come fall and closed in winter for snowmobiling and cross-country skiing. Three of the forest's campgrounds are in Maine; backcountry camping is allowed.