July 21-23,
2017
Travel from
Hanover, ME to Concord, VT.
Alpine
Valley CG, Concord, VT.
We got a
late start on the day we planned on exploring Franconia Notch State Park in
Lincoln, New Hampshire. When we got out of the truck in the parking lot of the
park, Monte noticed the front driver side tire was very low. Luckily there was an auto center five miles
down the road. It turned out to be the
valve stem. By the time the repair was
made it was too late to visit the State Park so we drove to the town of
Littleton, NH because it had the closest Walmart to our campground.
The
following day we got a much earlier start for our trip to Franconia Notch State
Park.
Franconia
Notch SP is located in the heart of the White Mountain National Forest. The Notch is a spectacular mountain pass
traversed by a unique parkway which extends from Echo Lake at the north to the
Flume Gorge at the south.
We planned
on exploring the gorge first but when we arrived at the visitor center it was
closed. A park employee informed us that
there had been a power outage through the night. She wasn’t sure what time the center would
open or even if it would open at all.
We opted to
drive to the Cannon Aerial Tramway and would call later in the day to see if
the gorge opened up.
The tramway
is an 80-passenger cable car that travels up to the 4,080 foot summit of Cannon
Mountain in under ten minutes.
The guide
pointed out the mountains of Maine, Vermont, New York and Canada in the
distance.
At the
summit we took the trail to the observation tower where we were rewarded with
spectacular views.
The ride
down the mountain was as thrilling as the ride up.
The New
England Ski Museum, located at the base of the aerial tramway, presents a
timeline of the development of skiing and includes the career of area native
Bode Miller.
Also located
in the Franconia Notch SP is the Great Stone Face, also known as The Old Man of
the Mountain.
The Profile
was a series of five granite cliff ledges on Cannon Mountain that appeared to
be the jagged profile of a face when viewed from the north.
The rock
formation was 1,200 feet above Profile Lake.
The first
recorded mention of the Old Man was in 1805 by a surveying team. But the profile did not become famous until
Nathaniel Hawthorne used the Old Man as inspiration for his short story “The
Great Stone Face” published in 1850.
Unfortunately,
the formation collapsed in 2003.
Currently
there is a viewing platform with “Steel Profilers” which, when aligned with the
Cannon Cliff above, create what the profile looked like up on the cliff
overlooking the Franconia Notch.
We learned
that the Flume Gorge Visitor Center had opened up.
The Flume is
a natural gorge at the base of Mount Liberty.
The main
attraction is a 2 mile walking trail including boardwalks through the gorge
itself.
The trail
starts from the visitor center, and the Flume Gorge is 7/10 of a mile out.
There is a
shuttle available from the visitor center to the Boulder Cabin but we opted to
walk.
As the trail
wound up through the woods we could hear the rushing water.
As the trail
reaches the Flume, it moves to a narrow boardwalk at the bottom of the gorge.
The grand
finale to the walk through the gorge is Avalanche Falls, the series of
cascading waterfalls at the top.
Continuing
along the trail we crossed the Sentinel pine bridge constructed in 1839.
Just past
the bridge we came across the Wolf’s Den.
The den is a
cave-like area that one must crawl through to get to the other side.
The little
boy in Monte just couldn’t resist the challenge.
