Androscoggin River Overlook at Gorham

Author's Comments

I almost did not stop the first time. Route 2 east of Gorham looks like a road that goes somewhere else, and most people are using it to get to Maine. But there is a stretch where the Androscoggin bends through pasture and the Presidentials rise behind it, and if you happen to pass through at the right hour you will pull over without quite deciding to. Dawn in September is when this place gives up its best self. The river holds mist in long ribbons that lift slowly off the water, the mountains catch first light before the valley does, and the contrast between cold river and warming peaks makes a photograph that does not need much help from the photographer. I have stood at one of the pull-offs before sunrise and watched a moose work the far bank for twenty minutes, never closer than two hundred yards, perfectly indifferent to me. A telephoto earns its weight here. What I like most is the restraint of the place. There is no sign, no parking lot, no interpretive panel telling you what you are looking at. You find your own vantage. You wait for the light. You drive a little farther down the road and try another bend in the river. Some mornings the mountains never clear and you go home with nothing. Other mornings the mist breaks at exactly the moment the sun crests the ridge and you understand why you got up at four. Stay through breakfast. The light keeps changing longer than you expect.

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