Saco River Idylls

Saco River Idylls, or all the way to Bartlett

The Saco River rises at a small six-acre mountain pond located near the gateway of Crawford Notch in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. This body of water, named Saco Lake, sits close to an old dog cemetery dating back to the early 1900s. The stream begins its descent at a small outlet on the lake’s south side and the watercourse travels generally to the southeast before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean at Saco Bay in Maine some 134 miles from the source. After Bartlett, as the river neared North Conway, it flowed alongside a stretch of the West Side Road and it was here that my favorite swimming hole was located.

I first swam there in the mid-1970s. I had visited Steven Cooney and his girlfriend, Mary Ellen, who rented an apartment in a large house a short distance from the swimming hole. Diving into the Saco always felt cold; the water was bracing and invigorating. On good years, the river itself must have been fifty feet wide at this point and around ten feet deep in the middle, and flowed as clear as any water I had ever experienced. People parked their cars on the side of the road and after grabbing coolers and towels, headed for the water. The river was right here, flowing ten feet below the level of the road. The embankment, however, was steep, rocky, and slippery with loose gravel. Most people at this location wore some kind of sneaker or sandal into the water when swimming; it helped to climb down or up the embankment, and protected bare feet from the occasional broken bottle. All one had to do was step over the guardrail, negotiate the descent of the steep embankment, and claim an empty rock as a seat.

The far side was not steep like the descent from the pavement but resembled a narrow flood plain before rising up and becoming an embankment, the ground at river’s edge there was flat with sandy beaches and gravel bars forming and changing with the flow. On hot summer days, you could feel the current but there were no rapids through this stretch of river. I enjoyed diving down to the riverbed in midstream where the water depth was deepest; holding onto a rock I could gaze upriver through the clear liquid and feel the tug of the current, a strange form of tidal gravity stretching me between Saco Lake above and Saco Bay below as it pulled my feet down towards the Atlantic Ocean.

The water was always pure and refreshing, and looking back over the years I am surprised I did not spend more summer afternoons swimming in the cool flow of the Saco River as it made its way along the side of the road. However, the White Mountains constitute a large locale of varied terrain and when camping anywhere in the mountains, another river or lake usually sat nearby, and these waters had swimming holes quite memorable in their own right. In addition, the North Conway area of the mountains is always busy and on crowded summer weekends, I stayed away from the endless traffic that flowed in and out of the bustling towns. Yet on a hot day, I often pined for the rocky embankment of the Saco hard on the edge of the road near North Conway.

The most memorable swims always came after a summer backpacking trip. On the last day of a multi-night adventure into the wilderness, I usually broke camp early so I could set out in the cooler hours of morning. Since I had burned my cooking fuel and consumed my meals and trail snacks, I now carried less weight than my first day on the trail and because the trip back to the trailhead was predominantly downhill, I made and kept a faster pace. After several days or a week in the backcountry, I was interested in taking the pack off my back and enjoying the civilized comforts of the mountains.

During the 1980s, at the far end of a wooden building in Bartlett, a small grill sold burgers and hot dogs during the summer tourist season. This place made a fine cheeseburger, served on a grilled Kaiser roll with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise then wrapped snuggly in tin foil. A deli-style half-sour pickle spear in a small waxed paper bag came with it. After returning to my truck on a hot summer afternoon following a long backcountry adventure, I liked nothing better than to stop in Bartlett and get a cheeseburger, a bag of potato chips, and replenish the cooler with beer and ice. Several minutes later, after a quick drive down rte 302 to the West Side Road, I parked my truck on the side of the Saco River.

After putting my food, two beers and a little ice in a plastic bag, I made my way down the steep embankment and stepped into the cold clear water of the river. In a few steps, the water was over my head and I swam sidestroke across the cold flowing watercourse holding the bag above the water as the current pushed me downstream. Reaching a sandbar on the other side, I sat at the water’s edge and enjoyed my burger, chips and a beer with my legs in the cool shallows and the hot sun beating down on my torso. After lunch, I lay on the sand and napped before returning to the water for an hour of swimming and aquatic recreation. Back at my truck, I slipped into dry clean underwear, a t-shirt, a fresh pair of shorts, and threw off my wet sneakers in favor of dry camp loafers. It was heaven, all of it, the perfect end to a glorious mountain adventure.

Yet there was one more pleasure gleaned from the Saco, as iconic and idyllic as that swimming hole was. That pleasure was a certain turn of phrase that we added to the lexicon of our group, appreciated by those of us that lived in New Hampshire and shared the mountain trails and those years together, a turn of phrase that brings a smile to my face these many years later.

One hot summer afternoon, Al Woods and I were finishing a day hike in Crawford Notch. Near the end of our walk, we ran into John and his wife Myra, friends from Manchester, a town situated down in the southern part of the state. Al and I worked with John so we all knew each other well; we had been on several overnight hikes together. Many in our hiking crowd, whether deservedly or not, considered Myra a complainer and when she was in form, it would take her three syllables to say, “John”.

Standing together at the trailhead we chatted for awhile as we put our daypacks away. John asked Al and me if we wanted to join him and Myra for a beer in Woodstock on the way home. Al said the two of them should join us and go swimming.

“Where?” asked John.

“Off the West Side Road, just past Bartlett,” I answered.

In her inimitable style, Myra replied, “All the way to Bartlett?”

Al began chuckling. Here we stood, almost at the gateway of Crawford Notch and Bartlett was just a quick ride downhill from here, probably not much more than 15 miles away on one of the finest mountain drives in the country. Yes, our river idyll did add a little to both the distance and duration of our ride home but it also meant a great swim on a hot day; we were still in the mountains and back home in Manchester it was hot and humid. After a short discussion between the two of them, John and Myra agreed to follow us to Bartlett in their car and go for a swim.

Driving down the hill to Bartlett to pick up some beer to take swimming, Al was just beside himself with glee. “All the way to Bartlett?” he said with a nasal whine and laughed aloud, then echoed it repeatedly. We purchased beer and snacks in Bartlett and the four of us retreated to the little stretch of heaven that the cold water of the Saco River provided. Two hours later, we made our way out of the mountains and drove home through the Lakes District and back into the mundane existence of our worlds, lives centered on work and the responsibilities that went with a career.

Eventually, the saying, “All the way to Bartlett”, caught on with our group at work and I heard it used by a variety of people in various contexts. However, that saying came to signify one thing: whining about something good, complaining for the pure joy of it.

My life in the mountains of New Hampshire, and the lives of my friends, played itself out on a distant stage a long time ago. Nowadays, especially on a hot summer afternoon in California, I think back to those idylls on the Saco and recall how refreshing it felt to swim in the river, to frolic in the cool clear running water after a hike, water that began its descent to the sea in the revered mountain fortress of Crawford Notch.

I recall my time on the Saco with a knowing smile and a nod to the past and the only thing I will complain about is how fast those years of life went by.