The Great North Woods

Great North Woods Pictures

Coos County includes the whole of the state's northern panhandle. The county seat is Lancaster, with an additional county seat in Colebrook. Photos

Major industries include forestry and tourism, with the once-dominant paper-making industry in sharp decline. The county straddles two of the state's tourism regions. The southernmost portion of the county is part of the White Mountains Region and is home to Mount Washington. The remainder of the county is known as the Great North Woods Region.

Coos County is part of the Berlin, NH–VT Micropolitan Statistical Area. It is the only New Hampshire county on the Canada-United States border, located adjacent to the Canadian province of Quebec, almost due south of Quebec City. A Travel Tour

Much of its mountainous area is reserved as national forest, wilderness, state parks and other public areas; these encompass most of the northern portion of the White Mountains, including all the named summits of the Presidential Range(though one, Mt. Webster's, lies about 200 feet from the county line). The 162-mile Cohos Trail runs the length of the county.

The principal state highways in Coos County area are New Hampshire Route 16, which runs mostly parallel to the Maine state line, and New Hampshire Route 26, which traverses the Great Northern Woods from Vermont Route 102 southeast to Maine Route 26 towards Portland. The two major US Highways are US Route 2, which roughly bisects the county from Lancaster to the Oxford County line, and US Route 3, which runs from Carroll in the south to the Canadian border at Pittsburg/Chartierville, where it continues as Quebec Route 257. I-93 runs through the Southern border of Carroll to Littleton and connects with I-91 in St. Johnsbury, VT. MapQuest  

Most of the area is public land, including the White Mountain National Forest as well as a number of state parks. Its most famous peak is Mount Washington, which at 6,288 feet (1,917 m) is the highest mountain in the Northeastern U.S. and home to the fastest surface wind gust (231 miles per hour (372 km/h), over 100 m/s, in 1934) measured in the Northern Hemisphere. Photos  Mount Washington is one of a line of summits called the Presidential Range, many of which are named after U.S. presidents and other prominent Americans.

In addition, the White Mountains include several smaller groups including the Franconia Range, Sandwich Range, Carter-Moriah Range, Kinsman Range and Pilot Range. In all, there are forty-eight peaks over 4,000', known as a group as the Four-thousand footers.

The Whites are known for their system of alpine huts for hikers, operated by the Appalachian Mountain Club. The Appalachian Trail crosses the area from southwest to northeast.

The White Mountains included the Old Man of the Mountain, a rock formation on Cannon Mountain that, when viewed from a certain angle, resembled the distinct craggy profile of a man's face until it fell in May 2003. It remains the state symbol of New Hampshire. The range also includes a natural feature dubbed "The Basin", consisting of a granite bowl, 20 feet (6 m) in diameter, fed by a waterfall, worn smooth by the Pemigewasset River. The areas around The Basin are popular spots for swimming in the ice-cold mountain-fed water.

The range is crossed by two north–south highway routes (U.S. Route 3 and Interstate 93 through Franconia Notch, and New Hampshire Route 16 through Pinkham Notch), and two east–west roads (the Kancamagus Highway, part of New Hampshire Route 112, through Kancamagus Pass, and U.S. Route 302 through Crawford Notch).