BGuthrie Photos: NH -- Franconia Notch and The Old Man Of The Mountain

NH -- Franconia Notch and The Old Man Of The Mountain:

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FRANC_010829_001.JPG: If you look closely in the upper right of this picture, you can see the profile. Without decent eyesight, you'd never notice it.
2. FRANC_010829_004.JPG: The explanatory sign says the following. I read this to say that it's a face only because someone decided it was. It looks like a face but there are thousands of natural formations (including the moon at weird times) that give that illusion: The Old Man of the Mountain The rock profile you see 1200 feet above this floor has its beginning some 25,000 years ago during the great ice age. As the glacier moved southward, the cliff began to take the shape you see today. As the ice age came to a close and the glacier retreated, frost, wind and rain caused the rocks that make up the face to take on a human form. The profile is made up of five leges, three are anchored deep in the cliff and support the two above, and measures 40 feet from chin to forehead. Only from this angle does the arrangement of the stones appear as a man's face. If the Indians of this region worshipped this natural wonder, they left no legends about it. The first white men, explorers then settlers, who traveled through this valley did not report seeing it. It was not until 1806 that two men, Luke Brooks and Francis Whitcomb, surveying in the Notch, came to this spot for water. Looking up, Brooks saw the face of a man high above the lake. "It's Jefferson," he cried, America's President being Thomas Jefferson at the time. Word of the profile was slow in reaching the outside world until 1825 when a letter from General Martin Field was published in the American Journal of Science. It was, however, Nathaniel Hawthorne's beautiful tale, "The Great Stone Face," written in 1850, the immortalized the Old Man of the Mountain. History does not record who first called the profile by the name we know it today. WC Prime, world traveler and writer, who first came to this region in 1859, said it best: "It might elsewhere have been given a name. Here it has been always. The Old Man of the Mountain, otherwise name-less."
3. FRANC_010829_008.JPG: This is about how the face looks with the naked eye. It's in the upper right again.
4. FRANC_010829_017.JPG: The New Hampshire license plate. Look closely and you'll see the Old Man in the middle.
Wikipedia Description: Old Man of the Mountain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Old Man of the Mountain, also known as the Great Stone Face or the Profile, was a series of five granite cliff ledges on Cannon Mountain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, USA that, when viewed from the correct angle, appeared to be the jagged profile of a face. The first recorded discovery of the Old Man was in 1805. The outcrop was 1,200 feet above Profile Lake, and measured 40 feet tall and 25 feet wide. It collapsed on May 3, 2003.

History:

The formation was carved by glaciers approximately 10,000 years ago and was first recorded as being discovered by a surveying team circa 1805. The official state history says several groups of surveyors were working in the Franconia Notch area at the time and claimed credit for the discovery.

Face-like stone formations are common around the world. The Old Man was famous largely because of statesman Daniel Webster, a New Hampshire native, who once wrote: "Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men."

The writer Nathaniel Hawthorne used the Old Man as inspiration for his short story "The Great Stone Face," published in 1850, in which he described the formation as "a work of Nature in her mood of majestic playfulness."

Symbolic profile:

The profile has been New Hampshire's state emblem since 1945. It was put on the state's license plate, state highway-route signs, and the back of New Hampshire's Statehood Quarter, which is popularly promoted as the only US coin with a profile on both sides. Before the collapse, it could be seen from special viewing areas along Interstate 93 in Franconia Notch State Park, approximately 80 miles north of Concord, New Hampshire.

Collapse:

Defying attempts at preservation, including the use of cables and spikes for most of the 20th century, the formation collapsed to the ground between midnight and 2 a.m., May 3, 2003. Centuries of wind, snow, and rain, as well as freezing and thawing cycles, finally caught up with the profile. Dismay over the collapse was so great that people left flowers at the base of the cliffs in tribute; some state legislators sought to change New Hampshire's state flag to include the profile; and many people suggested replacing the Old Man with a plastic replica - an idea that was quickly rejected by an official task force headed by former Governor Steve Merrill. On the first anniversary of the collapse, the task force unveiled coin-operated viewfinders near the base of the cliff. Looking through them shows how the Old Man used to appear.

On February 7, 2007, plans were announced at the New Hampshire State Library for an Old Man of the Mountain memorial, to include five huge stones which, viewed from a raised platform, merge into a form that recreates the profile outline. It is being overseen by The Old Man of The Mountain Legacy Fund, a committee that succeeded the Old Man of the Mountain Revitalization Task Force. The Legacy Fund is a private 501c3 corporation with representatives from various state agencies and several private non-profits.

Timeline of the Old Man:

* 17th millennium BC-6th millennium BC - An ice sheet recedes from North America, substantially creating the mountains, rivers, lakes and ponds found on the continent.
* 8th millennium BC - New England undergoes the Wisconsin glaciation, the most recent ice age. Glaciers cover New England and create the Old Man of the Mountain at Franconia Notch.
* 1604 - A Native American legend states that going north on Great Merrimack River leads to a mountain with a stone face.
* 1805 - Francis Whitcomb and Luke Brooks, part of a Franconia surveying crew, are the first white settlers to record observing the Old Man, according to the official New Hampshire history.
* 1832 - Author Nathaniel Hawthorne visits the area and later publishes a story called "The Great Stone Face".
* 1869 - President Ulysses S. Grant visits the formation.
* 1906 - The Reverend Guy Roberts of Massachusetts is the first to publicize signs of deterioration of the formation.
* 1916 - New Hampshire Governor Rolland H. Spaulding begins a concerted state effort to preserve the formation.
* 1955 - President Dwight D. Eisenhower visits the profile as part of the Old Man's 150th "birthday" celebration.
* 1965 - Niels Nielsen, a state highway worker, becomes unofficial guardian of the profile, in an effort to protect the formation from vandalism and the ravages of the weather.
* 1986 - Vandalizing the Old Man is classified as a crime under the state criminal mischief law. Under the law it is a misdemeanor for any person to vandalize, deface or destroy any part of the Old Man, with a penalty of a fine of between $1000 and $3000 and restitution to the state for any damage caused.
* 1987 - Nielsen is named the official caretaker of the Old Man by the state of New Hampshire.
* 1988 - A 12-mile stretch of Interstate 93 opens below Cannon Mountain. The $56 million project, which took 30 years to build, was a compromise between the government and environmentalists that sought to protect the surrounding landscape.
* 1991 - David Nielsen, son of Niels Nielsen, becomes the official caretaker of the Old Man.
* 2000 - The Old Man is featured on the state quarter of New Hampshire.
* 2003 - The Old Man collapses.
* 2004 - Coin-operated viewfinders are installed to show how the Old Man looked before its collapse.
* 2007 - Design of an Old Man of the Mountain memorial announced. It will feature large stone sculptures near the current viewfinders.
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