Rivergreen Condominium

Loon Mountain to Expand South Peak with 30 Acres, Quad Chair for Winter 2023/23

New terrain will rise from the Escape Route parking lot for the 2023-24 ski season

Loon is not even finished upgrading Seven Brothers from poke-along triple to high-speed quad and today we get this: next year, the resort will crack open 30 acres of trail and glade terrain threading in and around the Escape Route trail off South Peak. That blue run currently dead-ends at a series of massive parking lots, but will now terminate adjacent to a brand-new carpet-loaded fixed-grip Doppelmayr Alpenstar quad rising 500 vertical feet to the current Cruiser trail.

President Biden in Woodstock

November 16th, 2021 Presidential Visit to Woodstock, NH

Speaking in front of an 82-year-old bridge in Woodstock that is sorely in need of repair, President Joe Biden said Tuesday that the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill he signed into law will help fix it and the 214 other red-listed bridges in New Hampshire.

New Hampshire was Biden's first stop after signing the bill Monday. Amid light snow flurries, he said the bill will repair roads, provide clean drinking water and expand broadband internet.

"Fifty years from now, when historians write about this moment, I think they're going to talk about this was the time America recaptured the competition of the 21st century," he said.

Biden spoke at the Route 175 bridge over the Pemigewasset River, which is a key route for emergency vehicles. The bill provides $225 million to New Hampshire to replace or repair such red-listed bridges.

"This may not seem like a big bridge, but it saves lives and it solves problems," Biden said. "Let me tell you why: Businesses depend on it. Like the local propane company, or the sand and gravel company, or logging trucks. Public services depend on it, school buses, wastewater trucks cross it every day. It's essential to Woodstock Fire Station about a quarter-mile away. Without this bridge, as I said earlier, it's a 10-mile detour just to get to the other side."

Riverfront Park called 'transformative' for Lincoln

By JOHN KOZIOL Union Leader Correspondent
Jun 10, 2019 Updated Jun 11, 2019

LINCOLN — Already blessed with many natural attractions and amenities, the town on Monday began adding another, breaking ground on Riverfront Park.

The park will be situated on an 18-acre parcel along the northern bank of the Pemigewasset River, west of Jean’s Playhouse.

The park will be built in phases over 5-10 years and will include a skateboard park, multi-use trail system, playground, canoe launch and a dog park.

Several years in the planning, Riverfront Park is seen by the town as a way to expand recreational opportunities for residents and visitors; promote healthy lifestyles and wellness; increase public access to and use of the Pemigewasset River; and support local businesses.

Riverfront Park, according to the town, will also provide a permanent home for the Lin-Wood Skatepark and create both open green space and additional public parking.

In a slight departure from ground-breaking protocol, more than three dozen people posed for a group photo before youngsters Whitney Bell and Maya Scambio, with gentle guidance from selectman Tamra Ham, actually flipped the dirt to mark the ceremonial start of the Riverfront Park project.

Ham said she was thrilled that the park will appeal to a broad range of users, while board of selecemen chairman OJ Robinson earlier said the strong turnout for the groundbreaking represented “the support this project has.”

It’s “an exciting step,” Robinson added, to start cutting trees and moving dirt around for Phase 1, which will feature the skatepark; multi-use trail; a restroom facility; playground; and the canoe launch.

Phase II will have a performance space; an open lawn; a pavilion; a river overlook event space; the dog park; and pump track and flow trails for mountain bike riders.

Kevin Bell, who is Loon Mountain’s marketing manager and a member of the Lin-Wood Skatepark committee, said Riverfront Park will be “transformative” for Lincoln.

The park will provide everything to “cement ourselves as the destination in the White Mountains,” he said.

Tara Tower, who is Lincoln’s recreation director, said the town continues to raise funds and would appreciate either financial or in-kind donations.

She said Phase I of Riverfront Park should be complete this fall.

Hikers warned not to park along Franconia Notch Parkway in multi-agency crackdown

LINCOLN — Following years of safety concerns about illegal parking by hikers headed to nearb…

So far, said DOS Commissioner Robert Quinn, no one has been ticketed.

What the state police are doing in Franconia Notch, he said, is education, not enforcement.

“Parking there is not legal,” Quinn said, “and it’s not safe.”

Victoria Sheehan, the commissioner of the NHDOT, said the parkway is a busy place and that her agency views the hiker shuttle as “the safer alternative.”

DNCR Commissioner Sarah Stewart said there have been 1,200 riders in the five weeks that the shuttle has been running and that even though the state charges $5 per rider, it has lost money.

While DNCR is “looking at other appropriate ways of generating revenue to support the shuttle system,” the department nonetheless backs it, said Stewart.

“We believe that in spite of the financial loss in the short term, the program has been a great success,” Stewart said, “because it has provided a safe alternative to parking on the highway while still allowing visitors to get to their favorite hiking trails.”

Taylor Caswell, the BEA commissioner, said the shuttle initiative “is a prime example of multiple agencies and stakeholders coming together to develop a positive solution with minimal impact on the visitors' experience.”

FRANCONIA -- Despite losing nearly $10,000 so far and projected to lose another $40,000 this season, the state says a hiker shuttle has helped eliminate dangerous, illegal parking on the Franconia Notch Parkway.

On Monday, representatives of White Mountain National Forest and the Appalachian Mountain Club, along with reps from the state departments of Business and Economic Affairs, Safety, Transportation, and Natural and Cultural Resources, gathered for a brief update on the hiker shuttle at the Lafayette Place Campground.

Located on the west side of the parkway, the campground is opposite the parking lot on the east side for the Bridle Path/Falling Waters trails. Both venues are extremely popular and in the past have resulted in drivers parking on the parkway when the parking lots were full.

Recognizing the inherent danger of people leaving their vehicles on the parkway and then, in some cases, crossing the road to get to their recreational destination, the DNCR’s Division of Parks and Recreation last summer began running a shuttle from the state-owned Cannon Mountain ski area.

The shuttle was brought back this year, with the DOT installing bollards and roping in the parkway to deter parking, and with state police enforcing the parking ban. The DOT last year set up electronic signs directing drivers to park in the approved lots at Cannon.

Under state law, the parkway is deemed a restricted access highway where parking, stopping and standing are illegal and punishable by a $62 fine.