Bretton Woods, New Hampshire
Bretton Woods is an area within the town of
Carroll,
New Hampshire,
USA, whose principal points of interest are three leisure and recreation facilities. Being virtually surrounded by the
White Mountain National Forest and the
Pemigewasset Wilderness, its vista toward
Mount Washington and most of the rest of the
Presidential Range includes no significant artificial structures other than the
Mount Washington Cog Railway and the
Mount Washington Hotel.
Bretton Woods was the site of the
United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in
1944 which has given its name to the
Bretton Woods system and led to the establishment of both the
World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund in
1946. (The system eventually collapsed in
1971.)
US Route 302 runs 28 miles (45 km) between the business areas of one through-road intersection and that of the next, with only
a town of fewer than 3000, and areas like Bretton Woods or smaller, as concentrations of development between those intersections.
 |
Mount Washington Hotel, 1905. |
The
Mount Washington Hotel and Resort is one in the last surviving handful of
New Hampshire grand hotels, and includes a
golf course in its facilities.
The Bretton Woods Mountain Resort
ski area serves both
downhill and
cross-country skiing, primarily in the
Rosebrook Mountains, located in
Bethlehem to the south.
The tracks of the "Cog", and its associated buildings, lie up the slope of Mount Washington, in nearby
Thompson and Meserves Purchase. The "Base Road" from Bretton Woods and Fabyan's is the preferred route to the low-altitude end of those tracks (the Base Station of the Cog), except in those winters when the Mount Clinton Road is instead the only
plowed road to their intersection. (The closing of the lower end of the Base Road had been traditional into 2004.) The Cog was operated during the winter seasons of 2004-2006 to take wilderness skiers partway up the mountain.
The scenic
Crawford Notch area begins a few miles to the south, along US-302.
