Explore the winter wonders that New England has to offer.
Rogue Routes: The Road to the Ice Castles

Not far from the Central Square T stop in Cambridge, Massachusetts, bright colors spill out onto the sidewalk from a narrow alleyway. Two signs identify the alley by its formal name, Richard B. “Rico” Modica Way, and its more common title: Graffiti Alley.

Modica Way is an open-air, 24-hour art gallery that dates back to 2008. Geoff Hargadon and Gary Strack started the project—they were interested in street art, and began painting the exterior wall of Strack's restaurant Central Kitchen. Artists are welcome to paint whatever they want on the wall, which is now a constantly evolving gallery. As the project has grown, the city of Cambridge has joined in by adding a black and white photo collage to one wall and a brightly-colored plastic covering. On sunny days, vibrant blocks of color shine onto the walls and the cobblestone walkway.

Before you hit the road, pick up some breakfast and snacks for the drive at Reliable Market. This small market has been supplying the residents of Somerville with Korean and Japanese groceries for more than 30 years. From curry pastes and chili flakes to obscure candies, noodles, and vinegars, this small shop is the Union Square neighborhood’s best spot for pan-Asian grocery needs

In the back of the store, you can find a fresh seafood counter and refrigerators lined with jars of all kinds of fermented vegetables. A hot kitchen counter serves up a broad selection of East Asian offerings, including ramen and pad Thai. The real star of the show, though, is the Korean food. Try a hot and spicy kimchi jjigae, sweet bulgogi, or a filling order of bibimbap. All of the entrees come with white rice and banchan (a term for small sides such as kimchi). Don’t forget to grab some of the fresh dumplings and pork buns by the cash register on your way out the door.

You’ve probably heard of Walden Pond. In the summer of 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved into a small cabin on the pond’s north shore because he “wished to live deliberately.” He spent two years in that cabin, an experience that served as the basis for his 1854 work, Walden; or, Life in the Woods.

But Walden Pond has a fascinating history beyond its significance in the American literary canon. The 64.5-acre body of water was created by retreating glaciers some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last ice age. Its clear waters reach depths of up to 100 feet. In the winter, the pond freezes over—in the early 19th century, ice was harvested from Walden Pond and shipped to Boston for use in ice boxes.

Today, the pond is protected land. It is the centerpiece of Walden Pond State Reservation, a 335-acre state park and recreation site popular for hiking, fishing, and swimming. (While swimming is more popular in the summer, it’s not uncommon to see a few brave souls doing laps in the winter before the surface freezes over.)

In 1957, Jack Kerouac published On the Road, a love letter to the American road trip inspired by his travels across the country in search of glory, God, and the true meaning of life. So it's only sensible to stop in Kerouac’s home town of Lowell, Massachusetts.

This small Greek bakery has served downtown Lowell for more than a century. Spiro Vulgaropulos opened Olympos in 1915—the city has a large Greek population, and the bakery was popular with many who were searching for a taste of home. Vulgaropulos started baking in the basement of a church, but eventually the business moved into a storefront on Broadway Street. Olympos has stayed in the family, and today it is run by Vulgaropulos’s great-granddaughter Alethia Papanastassiou.

Inside, the air is filled with the smell of crusty bread and warm sugary treats. Glass display cases at the front of the store are filled with Greek pastries like baklava and finikia alongside chocolate-covered eclairs and cannolis dusted in powdered sugar. Olympos Bakery also offers sandwiches, salads, and pizza. Grab a warm spinach and feta pie and a pastry and stretch your legs with a walk through nearby Jack Kerouac Park.

Just across the state line in New Hampshire lies another poetic landscape. Narrow wooden planks wind a path through the Ponemah Bog Wildlife Sanctuary, a wetland filled with an rare and unusual flora and fauna.

The 75-acre wildlife sanctuary is owned and operated by the Audubon Society of New Hampshire, and gets its name from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1885 epic “The Song of Hiawatha.” Ponemah, which is derived from an Ojibwe word baanimaa, refers to the “land of the Hereafter.” The heart of the sanctuary is a three-acre pond covered in a mat of floating moss. Like Walden Pond, this landscape is a product of glacial retreat: a massive chunk of ice melted to create a body of water that once stretched across 100 acres. Over time, plant remains filled the pond and sphagnum moss stretched across its surface.

Within the bog you'll find unique carnivorous flora including sundew and pitcher plants. Hardy spruce and pine trees fill the surrounding forest, which is home to a variety of songbirds.

Though his name is often associated with impressive structures like Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright designed many houses that were smaller and less famous, but no less significant in American architecture. His Usonian houses were modest middle-class homes that were intended to be functional, affordable, and in tune with their surroundings. The Zimmerman House in Manchester, New Hampshire, is a perfect example of Usonian architecture, as well as one of the only homes designed by Wright in New England that is open to the public.

The Zimmerman House was commissioned by Dr. Isadore and Lucille Zimmerman in 1949. Sitting on the corner of a quiet suburban street, the brick and cypress house has a compact design. Narrow hallways lead into dramatic open spaces with views of the garden outside. After the Zimmermans passed away, the house was left to the Currier Museum of Art. The home’s original furniture and garden have been preserved, so a guided tour feels like stepping back in time to see Wright’s original vision.

In the winter of 2014, Reverend Steve Blackmer began trekking out into the forest every Sunday. His pack held a few unusual items for a hike: altar bells, a communion wafer, and a clay goblet. Once he found a spot that felt right, Blackmer would set up a makeshift altar and begin a church service. At first, he was preaching to himself and the plants and animals around him, but over time a congregation came together in what came to be known at the Church of the Woods.

Blackmer spent three decades as an environmental activist before he felt called to become an Episcopal priest. After he was ordained, Blackmer founded this church in the hopes of bringing back a spirit of nature often lost in religious practice. Located on 106 acres of forest in Canterbury, New Hampshire, it bills itself as “a new kind of church,” one that is tied to the land instead of a particular building. People of all different faiths, beliefs, and traditions are welcomed to gather to celebrate and protect the natural world around them, whether that is done through weekly services, a peaceful walk through the woods, or cross-country skiing.

You'll have to walk just a bit to see the wonders of Sculptured Rocks Natural Area on display. From next to the little canyon or atop the short bridge that spans it, you can see the incredible shapes carved into the bedrock by the Cockermouth River. Jagged rocks are replaced with smooth arcs and curves that look they could have been sculpted by a human hand.

The Sculptured Rocks are known by some as the “New Hampshire Grand Canyon.” Though it's much smaller than its Southwest counterpart, it was created in the same manner. Over thousands of years, bits of sediment carried by the river smoothed out jagged edges in the rock, creating intricate nooks and crannies where water flows through.

If you're hoping to swim, summer is the best time to visit. But if you want to have the place to yourself, winter is your friend. Be wary of the edges in icy and rainy conditions; they slant downwards toward the water, and it wouldn't take much to slip over the edge.

The White Mountains of New Hampshire are home to an otherworldly winter landscape that looks like it’s straight out of Frozen. Icy spires rise up from the ground, glowing softly with a rainbow of colors. Inside, slides and tunnels have been carved into the ice, and water pours from fountains cascading waterfalls.

The Ice Castles project began in 2011, when founder Brent Christensen built an ice cave in his front yard. It was a neighborhood hit, and has grown from that first simple structure into a large-scale operation with locations in Utah, Colorado, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire.

The castles are created by teams of artisans, who carefully sculpt and coax the ice into the intricate, but temporary, feats of architecture. A series of drip pipes start the process of trickling out their icicles—the “seeds” of the castles. These icicles then form the basis of the structures, which are made entirely out of ice and snow. More than 10,000 new icicles are formed and added every day. By the time it’s complete, a single ice castle can weigh more than 20 million pounds.