Mount Cardigan, a 3,155-foot mountain in western New Hampshire, is distinguished by its broad bare-rock summit, whose open granite ledges and alpine scrub give it the feel of a far taller peak. Much of this stark upper landscape resulted from destructive forest fires in 1855 that stripped most of the mountain’s upper slopes. Its geology includes metamorphic rock on the west flank and Kinsman Granodiorite on the summit and east side, part of the Cardigan Pluton formed about 411 million years ago. Protected within Cardigan Mountain State Park, it has long served recreation, with Civilian Conservation Corps ski trails, Cardigan Lodge, and an important watershed divide between the Connecticut and Merrimack river systems.

Orange, New Hampshire · USA