Travel dates: July, 2021
It’s that time of the year where I start to freak out about how much blogging is still left to do about last summer’s trip given how close this summer’s trip is getting! So time to pick up the pace! The good part of this is that…this summer’s trip is getting close! We’re excited! We found out a couple of weeks ago that the wonderful people who have been house sitting for us for the past few years aren’t able to come this year and had a bit of a panic…but now we have new house sitters lined up, so all is well again.
ANYWAY. Back to last summer. I’ve got one more post about New Hampshire before we head over to Vermont.
We stayed very close to Franconia Notch State Park (at the Lincoln Woodstock KOA), but we spent a lot of our time there doing day trips to places farther out. Between that and the fact that it rained almost every day that we were there, we didn’t get as much hiking in the park accomplished as we’d intended.
But we did spend a morning at the Flume Gorge and another day hiking to Artist’s Bluff.
The Flume Gorge
The Flume Gorge is, like the Grand Canyon, one of those places where erosion has made something really cool and impressive. It’s a natural gorge with 90 foot high granite walls, and a hiking trail and boardwalk system take visitors through it, with lots of amazing views along the way.
One thing to know about the Flume Gorge is that it’s pretty expensive. We’re not used to paying a lot of money to do a hike, but I guess owing to New Hampshire’s lack of an income tax, the parks have to make money some other way. Admission is $18 for adults and $16 for kids 6-12, so we paid $106 for the six of us to do the hike. I don’t want to say that it was worth it or not worth it, but I will say that a few weeks later we hiked in the similarly gorge-y Watkins Glen in New York, paid a $10 parking fee, and all of us liked it better than The Flume Gorge. So if you can only do ONE impressive gorge hike, that’s the one we recommend. Although Flume Gorge is also very nice.
You start out at the visitor center, where you can buy tickets plus assorted food and souvenirs. And then you start on the 2 mile loop trail to the gorge and back. There are lots of steps and hills, but you’re stopping and looking at things all the time, so it’s not a particularly strenuous hike and should be a good one for most kids.
Recurring theme for the White Mountains (and, indeed, for much of our trip): we were there on a drizzly/rainy day. Which I guess means there was more water flowing than usual.
You walk through the woods for awhile before getting to the gorge itself, but it’s a pleasant hike the whole way, with lots to see:
After awhile there’s a small building with exhibits and bathrooms where you can take a break:
And then it’s gorge time! Even on a rainy day, things got very crowded once we hit this part of the trail.
It’s a loop trail, so you go back a different way and see different things. And, if you’re interested, you can squeeze through rock tunnels and whatnot:
Artists Bluff
So we were looking for a shortish, easyish hike with great views, and everything I read online suggested that Artists Bluff was it!
Well.
It is a short hike (we did the loop trail, which is about 1.5 miles total), and the views are stunning, even on yet another drizzly day:
But, as for the easy part…it’s a very steep trail, with a lot of rocks to navigate. You can do it as an out and back trail, in which case it’s a short but very steep climb up the rocks. If you make the loop, you can either go clockwise (what we did) and hit the rocks on the way down (probably a bad choice on our part) or counterclockwise and get the steep part out of the way straight off.
I can see why people talk about this as a great family hike; the rocks make it interesting and fun for kids, and it’s short enough that the elevation changes are manageable for most people. However, I can’t recommend hiking it (at least for casual hikers) on a day with rain and therefore with wet, slippery rocks, and it also probably wasn’t the best choice to do with Dave’s parents, both active and fit, but also in their mid 70s.
There were so many rocks to climb down:
When there weren’t rocks, there were roots:
But we made it!
And thus concludes our time in the White Mountains. We did a lot of great stuff, but I wouldn’t mind going back sometime when it doesn’t rain for four straight days!
maybe you would like to pin this?
New Hampshire looks very good in rainy conditions. But steps? Just no. I can do steep, but not steps. (The stress fracture in my “bad” foot right now does not help, but steps are permanently bad.)
My knees don’t love steps! They always seem like they’ll be easier than a steep hill, but no.