When I started working here back in late 2005, we had four webcams available to view – our Observation Deck cam, our North View cam, our West View cam, and our Ravines cam (now known as the Wildcat cam). The Observation Deck webcam was mounted in a heated box up in our instrument tower and looked out toward our east over the New Hampshire State Park Sherman Adams Building observation deck and points beyond. Our North View cam is located in a heated box in a room adjacent to our weather office and looks out over the northern summits of the Presidential Range. Our West View cam is in a non-heated box in our weather office and looks out towards Mt Lafayette, Bretton Woods, and points beyond. And our Ravines cam was mounted in the old gondola building which once resided on the summit of Wildcat Mountain.

 

 

When I started, these cameras captured and posted an image every 15 minutes or so when our network and internet connection to the valley was working. Images were adequate at the time but by today’s standards, they would be considered low-resolution. And even though three of them were in heated enclosures, there were times when the windows or domes they were looking out would rime up and the view would just be a wall of white. And since all of these were mounted well above ground-level, we were unable to reach them to remove ice, so it would be up to Mother Nature to clear things off for us.

 

As technology evolved and became more affordable, we were able to expand to additional off-summit sites installing one on Bretton Woods providing a view of the mountain from the west. We then had a fundraising effort to expand to two additional views – one from Attitash Mountain Resort which provided a view of the mountain from the south and one in Jackson, NH providing a view from the southeast. And the most recent addition was a cam attached to the Mt Washington State Park Sherman Adams building providing a view of our Observation tower as well as the summit sign (must be a member to view).

 

 

Through various donations along with technology evolving and becoming more affordable, we have been able to purchase and upgrade the cameras which also allowed us to add additional features for members of our Organization to enjoy. When we upgraded a few of them we gained the ability to zoom in on features, so we started to add zoomed in images of popular summits and ravines. A more reliable connection and faster transfer rates allowed us to update the images more frequently. We added the ability for sunrise and sunset timelapses first on the summit cameras then expanded them out to be included to all webcams. We then added full-day timelapse video capabilities to all our cameras. A few of them have been upgraded to High Definition quality with a couple having good low-light capabilities allowing us to capture upwards of an hour before sunrise and an hour after sunset. And our Wildcat camera gained a high quality zooming camera allowing even better zoomed in views of popular locations on our east side. And now we are in beta testing our newest feature – live streaming webcams.

 

The two webcams that we are testing live-streaming with are our Wildcat cam and our Observation Deck cam. Live-stream testing at the moment is open to the public and is being utilized to work out any bugs or glitches, gauge interest, and assess the costs of supplying real time live views of our cameras. Both of them are a temporary feature during our testing phase and both have additional information to review below the live-streams. And while we are testing, your feedback is important! You can CLICK HERE to use the “Contact Us” to let us know what you think (this page is also linked at the top of each of the webcam pages). So, please enjoy the views and we hope to hear your feedback so we can offer this as a perk to our members in the not so distant future.