Franconia Notch State Park

The last day of September was spent exploring Franconia Notch State Park. Mark wanted to take the Aerial Tramway to the 4,080-foot summit of Cannon Mountain. I was a little less enthusiastic because someone who rode it the day before said she was "crammed on" with 60-70 people (standing room only) and the tram cars don't look that big. It was less busy today, however, and we rode up with about 20 passengers. Several of the people on board were members of an extended family visiting from Israel.

 

We took a short hike on the Rim Trail to the observation deck for a view of the surrounding countryside. It was a beautiful clear day, perfect for a hike on the mountaintop.

View of Echo Lake from the tram.

 

After riding the tram back down the mountain, we spent a few minutes in the New England Ski Museum onsite where Bode Miller's 2010 Olympic Gold, Silver and Bronze metals are on display. Very cool!

 

Then we we drove to Echo Lake with views of Mt Lafayette and Cannon Mountain.

 

We also stopped at the Basin trail and walked along the Pemigewasset River which tumbles over the rocks and into and through "the basin", a deep granite pothole 20-feet in diameter, eroded smooth by the swirling, fast-moving water.

A peaceful, serene part of the river

The Basin

 

We had bought combination-tickets to ride the tramway and hike The Flume, so that was our next stop. The Flume is a natural gorge at the base of Mt Liberty. In the gorge, the granite walls rise perpendicularly to a height of 70-90 feet and are 12-20 feet apart.

1886 covered bridge across the Pemigewasset River

Narrow part of the gorge

 

When we left The Flume, Mark wanted to check out Boise Rock, the huge boulder under which Thomas Boise took shelter in the 1800's when he was trapped by a terrible blizzard and survived.

 

There was lots to see in Franconia Notch State Park today. Leaving the park, we headed for Littleton, where we spent the night in the Walmart parking lot. I love that most Walmarts allow traveling campers to park overnight for free :)

I'm feeling very thankful and blessed to have had the opportunity to travel every fall since 2010 exploring a different part of our beautiful country with Mark. We were planning to cover Maine this year, too, but there has been so much to see, we're running short on time. Lord willing, maybe we'll do Maine next year!

PS Please say a prayer for me. This morning (Tuesday) when I got up, I bent over to pick something up and had such pain in my back I couldn't move or straighten back up. I've had a lot of back pain but nothing ever that intense. It took awhile to subside enough for me to move and I'm still hurting. We are at McDonald's for breakfast so we can send this blog post. We're supposed to do some more hiking today. I'll let you know how it goes!

 

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