Forest and 
FEB 2 1914 
Stream 
$3 a Year, 10 Cts. a Copy. 
Six Months, jjSl. 50 . 
NEW YORK, SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 1914 
VOL. LXXXII.—No. 5 . 
22 Thames St., New York. 
Snowshoeing in the White Mountains 
A T the upper end of Stillwater village we 
came to a fork in the road. According to 
the guide boards one branch led to Benton 
and the other to Wildwood. We had supposed 
we would go through both places on the direct 
road to Lost River and now to find a different 
road to each place we were at a loss just how 
to proceed. We had started from Woodsville 
that morning, the Camera-man and I, on a com¬ 
bined snowshoeing and tramping trip through 
the White Mountains. It was not encouraging 
to be thus early brought to a standstill. 
“I’m going to enquire of that fellow sawing 
wood,” said the Camera-man, as the sound of a 
buck saw came from a nearby shed. 
“That fellow sawing wood” turned out to be 
a woman. The Camera-man took one backward 
step when he discovered the fact but rallied 
quickly, touched his cap and said: “Pardon me, 
but could you tell us which road we should take 
to Kinsman Notch and the Lost River?” 
“Well,” replied the lady, “you can take the both 
of them.” Of course we couldn’t follow those 
directions minutely and still keep together. Any¬ 
how we did not misinterpret the good woman’s 
meaning and found by a little more questioning 
that one road followed the river straight up to 
Wildwood while the other went around by Ben¬ 
ton, was more hilly and two miles farther. It led 
to Wildwood eventually—and three miles beyond 
Wildwood was Lost River. 
“But where can we get some dinner?” I asked, 
for this tramping gives me an appetite and it 
was then about ten o’clock. 
“The first houses on the river road are five 
miles up,” she said, “at Whitcherville.” 
At first the road was good, but farther up 
there had been less travel and it was exceedingly 
heavy. Fourteen inches of soft snow made the 
snowshoeing at the roadsides but little better. 
We had worried along over this kind of going 
for some over an hour when we met a boy haul¬ 
ing logs with a yoke of oxen. 
“How far to the first house?” we asked. 
“Oh, two or three miles,” he answered, “but 
there ain’t nobody lives there.” 
“How far to where some one does live?” 
“No one lives on this road.” 
“How far across to the other road?” 
“About a mile but steep and brushy.” 
That seemed to be about the only course then 
open so we tied on the snowshoes and started. 
“Well, it’s steep and brushy all right,” says the 
Camera-man, striving to get hold of a bush to 
pull himself up by. 
“I should say as much, or more,” I replied, as 
one of my shoes caught on an unseen bush, 
turned on its side and buried itself about three 
By W. Dustin White 
feet. As I started to arise the Camera-man 
snickered. 
“I was just ready to take one of those ‘been 
there’ pictures,” he said, “but didn’t suppose you 
would pose quite so well.” 
At last we reached the road and applied for 
dinner at the first house. Nothing doing! Next 
house! Same luck! It began to look as though 
we would have fared as well on the river road. 
Then we came to the village. At the first house 
our knock was not answered. At the next the 
dooryard was full of sleighs and it looked like 
some kind of a gathering. I was for passing by 
but the Camera-man wouldn’t hear to it. 
“Yes, you can have some dinner if you can 
wait a few minutes,” said the girl who answered 
his knock, “Come in.” 
The house was nearly full of people, young and 
old, and still they kept coming. I began to won¬ 
der if it was a wedding, or a funeral, or a family 
reunion. In talking it over afterward, the Camera¬ 
man said he noticed that the people were not sad 
enough for a funeral or well enough dressed for 
a wedding. At the time, however, we curbed our 
curiosity, waited until the second table and did 
ample justice to a splendid dinner. Just as we 
were through a plate was passed. 
“How much?” we asked, when it came our 
way. 
“This is the Ladies’ Aid Dinner,” was the re¬ 
ply. “We are raising money to repair the church 
and each pays as he sees fit.” 
We were able to get directions here as to the 
easiest way to get to Lost River and soon start¬ 
ed. A tramp of six miles took us to Wildwood. 
That was the end of the road and we were obliged 
to put on the snowshoes. Three miles of hard, 
up-grade snowshoeing took us up into Kinsman 
Notch. From there on I was more or less ac¬ 
quainted with the country, having been there the 
summer previous. The caverns of Lost River 
were buried deep under the snow so we hurried 
on down the other side and soon struck a log¬ 
ging road that led to a lumber camp. After a 
good supper with the lumber jacks we followed 
the logging railroad down to Lost River Mills 
then took the main road to North Woodstock. 
We paused a short time at Indian Leap and 
Agassiz Basin and reached North Woodstock 
between eight and nine o’clock. We had made 
twenty-seven or eight miles which we consid¬ 
ered a fair day’s work for the first. 
Next morning we tramped back up Lost River 
a couple of miles to get pictures of Indian Leap 
and Agassiz Basin. It seemed like a lot of travel 
for what we would get in return but, as the 
Camera-man put it, we wanted to do the trip 
proper and it might be a long time before we 
The “Been There” Picture I Took. Hoboing is Far More Tiresome Than Snowshoeing 
