A Stunning Hike in Franconia Notch

Wednesday July 5, 2023                                        Most Recent Posts: 
Falling Waters                                              Writing in the Shadow of a Flood
Lincoln, New Hampshire           Inspired by Sally Mann: Days in Black and White

The hike I took up the Falling Waters trail  was so spectacular that I’m devoting an entire post to it.   I’ll catch up to real time in the next post or two.

I drove 37 miles into New Hampshire to Franconia Notch State Park to hike this rocky trail that was SO worth it.   Hope you feel like you’ve hiked it with me after reading this but without all the climbing.    There are several short videos to give you the magnificent sounds of these falling waters.

The Falling Waters trail is the red line at the bottom of the map running left to right.

The trail starts out encouragingly with a few rocks I can easily hike around.

And then a few more.

Lovely cascades along the side of the trail.         See the video here.  

The one and only bridge over the water.  Notice the rock slab on the far side.

View from the bridge.

On the other side.  The rock slab up closer.  Bigger rocks, yes the trail goes through here.

The last of the “easy parts”.

The river along side the trail was gorgeous all the way up.

The sun made this an impossible picture and the going was slow between the roots and the rocks.   This looks like a dry stream bed but it’s the trail.  In big rains I’m sure it is a stream.

Roots and rocks!

Now, how to get to the other side?

A closer look for planning.  Rocks are wet and slippery.  The water to the left is over my boot tops deep.  So no crossing there.

Standing on a rock in the middle.

Looking back from the middle  at the cool steps carved out of the rock.

I just walked down these.

View from the middle looking the other way.

Where I’m trying to get to.

The people following me also trying to figure it out.

This picture of these falls isn’t as nice as this short video of it.  

The rooty way up.

Another water to cross to a giant slab of slippery rock with nothing to hold on to.

Here’s the video of me standing on it after I got across with some folks following me.  

And the trail I found at the top of the rock face.

Looking down at the same water from the rocky trail.

Yes this is the trail too.   Can you even find it? 

The pictures of the rushing water do not do its beauty justice except perhaps in the videos.

Yes this is the trail too but the only way you can tell is thank heavens for the blue trail blaze.

My goal from a distance.

Worth the climb.

Here is a video of this final falls.  When it pans past my blue hiking pole, notice the rocks above and around the pole.  Those are the ones I climbed down and back up to and from the trail.    Major obstacles when you have very short legs.

What goes up, must come down through those same rocks and across those same slippery waters.

Almost at the bottom,  my proof that I did it up and back and it was worth the effort!

I didn’t have any trouble with my hips or my knees on the hike or after but boy were my thighs and calves sore the next day.    Would I do it again?  YOU BET!!

Writing in the Shadow of a Flood

July 1-4, 2023                                                           Most Recent Posts:
Moose River Campground   Inspired by Sally Mann: Days in Black & White
St. Johnsbury, Vermont        Dodging the Rain in the Northeast Kingdom 

As I type this there is flooding all over the state of Vermont.  And some places in the western southern area have been hit pretty hard as has New York.  The ground is just too saturated with all the rain we have had to take in several more days of rain which is happening.   Apparently we get a one day break on Wednesday before it starts up again.  And it has stopped for today so I need to get this posted and get outside.

Mary and Gary have owned Moose River Campground for 26 years and have been through floods multiple times.  Gary says, “If it happens, it won’t be until tomorrow.  We’ll let you know when to start packing up”.  Mary says “No one is going to have to move”.   They have the experience so I’m trusting them.   At this point, the river will have to come up about 2 more feet to get to me and the rain has stopped for today and tomorrow.   This river goes down only slightly less quickly than it goes up so by the time the rain starts again on Thursday (SIGH) I should be able to see the rocks on the bottom again.

Here’s a video of the river from yesterday morning.   It is rushing down to get to New York I guess.   It’s slightly higher and slightly faster today.

While I’m waiting out  the rain, I’ve busied myself writing this blog about the first days of July.

As those of you who follow me know, all of my posts since I arrived in Vermont mention rain.  It has rained and rained and that’s why the ground is saturated and flooding could happen.  But I have done some things other than stay inside and read.

You can play Bingo in the rain and we did that here at the park under the pavilion roof as part of the 4th of July week-end.

Loretta was our substitute caller since Carmen, the regular caller for years, had just had cataract surgery.  Loretta did a great job calling the 9 games we played.

We all had a fun time especially those who won of course.  I love bingo and especially this kind where you can play 3 cards in one game and it costs a dollar each time.  So the very most you could lose is $9 and if you win the pot, you get half and the Animal Shelter gets the other half.  AND if you win one of the special games you get the money and a prize like my neighbor Karen did here.

On a  morning when rain was predicted for 11am, I took the kayak out early to Molly’s Falls Pond and had a wonderful time.   If you read my last post, you will recognize some of these photos as color versions of ones in that blog.

The only campsites are paddle in.  I think there are 4 of them along the shore far apart from each other.

Things I saw along the shore. . . .

I have to say, Vermont has some great rocks.  What do you see in this one? 

There are three streams of varying sizes flowing into Molly’s Falls Pond.  I know this because I could heard them before I saw them.   Not sure which one is THE falls.   They sound beautiful.  If you like to see the moving water and hear it use this link to a 17 second video.

Some of you will recognize these shore side cairn builders.

Not sure this will qualify as Falls #2 but the sound is beautiful.

Falls #3.  Wonder what they all look like today after several more days of rain.  I might go back if it will stop raining.  But here is what it looked and sounded like on the day I was there.  Warning.  The video gets a little shaky toward the end of its 34 seconds.  I was trying to pan up for more cascades.

This pond is one of my favorites for all the above reasons but the biggest reason is the loons.

I was paddling around the edge of the pond and watching the shoreline as you can see from the pictures.  I heard a loon call and looked away to see where the sound was coming from and right in front of me, this is what I saw.

Of course I hung around taking scads of pictures.  Yes the brown furry thing is a baby loon. 

Calling again.  Why didn’t I set the camera on video at this point?

Turned out there were two baby loons.

I finally thought to turn on my video and took this 1 minute of them swimming around but of course there was no more calling.   To watch it, this is the link.

I particularly like this photograph of an island in the lake both in black and white and what is barely color in the stormy skies.

The holiday week-end free ice cream delivery was in business when I returned.

During the rains, I busied myself with the usual reading and puzzles and this attempt to finally fix the problem of my front window curtains.  They have become detached from their sliders and I’ve asked any number of people how to fix this but they do not come off the ends of the rod without taking the rod off it seems.  Anyway it is a complicated mess. 

When my friend Jody was here (see last post) he took a look and recommended that I try to glue the little sliders back on to the tape at the top of the curtains.  So I got some tiny bottles of Flex Super Glue and some clamps.

I clamped a total of 12 over two days.  As of 5 days later, 4 need to be redone.  We’ll see what the long term result is.   Other ideas gratefully accepted.

I was also notified at about 8:30 pm ,by a strong alarm, that my propane/carbon monoxide detector wants replacing.  The alarm can be deactivated for a few days but it is LOUD.

Wonderful David who replaced it the last time put the date he installed it on the detector so when I removed it to see if it was a matter of a battery, I read 1/9/18 which is more than 5 years ago and 1 day after his birthday.   It is hardwired in and I’ve ordered a replacement which should be here today.  Guess I’ll be watching U Tube how to replacement videos during the next rain.   Advice welcome.

I’ll save a fantastic hike I took in Franconia Notch one morning when the rain held off until the afternoon and another morning on the water for my next post.  By the time I write that I will either have had to evacuate or not.