Assignment 2: Crawford Notch | Kirk Newton

Crawford Notch has a long history of being used as an escape into nature, given its location on the east coast and proximity to major east coast metropolitan areas, including New York City and Boston, with it being referred to as the "birthplace of outdoor recreation." Given that this location contains the longstanding Notchland Inn, Highland Center Lodge and the nearby Mount Washington Hotel as the main local nodes, what does this, combined with observations on local Pittsburgh hiker culture indicate?

Who doesn't want to stay in a charmingly rustic cabin in the woods?

Pictured above is the Notchland Inn (notchland.com), a series off curated cottages offering "all the luxury of a grand resort but the cozy feel of a bed and breakfast." The inn features an in house naturalist to give professional recommendations to guests for hiking and swimming in Crawford Notch.

Go ask the caretaker about his axe.

If New England rustic pastiche isn't your thing and you prefer a more overt brand of indulgent luxury, the Mount Washington Hotel awaits. The hotel, originally built in 1902, but reconstructed several times after a series of fires, is "one of the few remaining luxury hotel resorts in New Hampshire." Here, one can find repose and indulge in activities including horseback riding, golf, or tennis, amongst other activities.

It's like a cabin with elaphantitis.

Closest to the proposed Saco Lake Bath site is the Appalachian Mountain Club Highland Center, listed as one of the top fifty ecolodges in the world, furnished with designs by L.L. Bean. Here, guests have access to hiking, snowboarding and camping supplies in the L.L. Bean gear room.

Recreationaling the outdoors since 1938.

Speaking of name-dropping brands, this brings the discussion back to Pittsburgh, and the local hiking culture. There's a limited number of outdoor supply stores in the city, but the most popular by far, and the most appropriately stocked is REI. Anecdotally, this is essentially the best and only store in Pittsburgh specifically geared towards wilderness activities.

Thus comes the point: hiking is and always has been geared towards the upper crust who have the financial means to buy the necessary equipment and the ability to drop everything and go to the middle of nowhere for fun. The hotels in Crawford Notch reinforce this impression of a wealthy hiker culture; despite all of their differences visually, all of the major hotels feature splash pages showcasing luxury and invoking an "escape" from the daily grind. The people going to Crawford notch are not wandering souls, living their life on the edge, but rich, stressed, and slightly overweight people dressed up in the finest Gore-Tex windbreakers, Patagonia leggings, and L.L. Bean boots, dragging with them their George Foreman portable kerosene stoves and Marmot Limelight 3P tents.

How can this inform the design of the bathhouse? Visitors to Crawford Notch probably have some expectation as to the relative comfort of their experiences, given the local lodging competition, meaning care must be taken to create an experience that, while integrated with nature and somewhat rustic, cannot be an austere experience.