Franconia Notch, Sandwich Notch and More

Today was a day to rebound and rest from our relatively strenuous hike into the Great Gulf Wilderness yesterday, and to prepare for a rainy day of errands and chores tomorrow, looking forward to our hike up to Lakes of the Clouds Hut on Sunday and return down Crawford Path on Monday.

We wanted to find some low-impact activities that would get us out and about, and acquaint us better with the area.  We started with the Cannon Mountain Aerial Tram.  As noted in this historical sign, Cannon Mountain, a notable ski mountain and the home slope of Bodie Miller, boasts the first aerial tramway in North America.  Our tramcar didn't look like the one in the historical photo below, but we had similar awesome views!

The new tram's base station is modern and boasts tramcars that can carry up to 80 people:

While we waited for our ride to the top of Cannon Mountain, we walked out behind the tram station and looked up the mountain, noting with awe that it is possible to hike up trails to the top.  Later, as we walked around the rim trail, we met a woman and her German Shepherd who had, indeed, hiked up and were resting before their return to Earth.

Boarding the tramcar, we lifted off quickly, and it wasn't long before we had an impressive view of Franconia Notch, with Echo Lake in the center on this side of the I-93 Franconia Notch Parkway.  In the photo below, looking Northeast, Canada is out there beyond the clouds.

We reached the mountaintop tram station, and, as we walked out to the Rim Trail, we spotted this group of tourists waiting to board the tram back down to the base in Franconia Notch:

As we hiked the Rim Loop Trail, we got views South down Franconia Notch, with I-93 dominating the view:

We found a viewpoint, where David stood in front of Mount Lafayette, the goal of our first hike in the White Mountains in July 2004, when we joined Paul Davis and other AMC hikers on a four-day tour of the Pemigewasset huts, starting with Greenleaf Hut just below Mount Lafayette, then Galehead Hut on Galehead Mountain, and Zealand Falls Hut at -- perhaps you guessed -- Zealand Falls, a ledge falls on Whitewall Brook.

We reached the Observation Tower on Cannon Mountain and took in the 360-degree views.  Here is a view of the top of the Aerial Tram, on the right, and another ski chairlift, on the left, looking north toward the New Hampshire border with Canada:

As we stood on the Observation Tower, we were beseiged by a swarm of flies that looked like ants with wings.  They did not bite, and did not seem to be attracted to us.  But, when we walked among them, they landed on us and stayed, only leaving passively when we brushed them off.  Here they are, swarming on one of the observatory's viewing telescopes:

We walked down from the Observatory Tower to the Tramway Station and stood on the deck, looking West toward Vermont.  The line of clouds in the distance formed over the Connecticut River, the boundary between the two state.  Looking more closely, we realized that our shadows were also enjoying the view:

After taking in the views, we rode the tram down the mountain and walked over to the Museum of New Hampshire Skiing, where Kathy demonstrated one of the skimobiles that had carried skiers up one of New Hampshire's ski mountains -- the result of which was that the resort was dubbed "Kiddie Car Mountain":

On the tram, we learned that Profile Lake, next to the Tram Station, boasts a Memorial Park to the Old Man of the Mountain.  It was a profile formed by series of five granite cliff ledges on Cannon Mountain.  It appeared to be the jagged profile of a human face when viewed from the north. The first recorded mention of the Old Man was in 1805. It collapsed on May 3, 2003.  We walked over to Profile Lake to visualize the old formation, and Kathy helped:

We started back toward the parking lot for Cannon Mountain, and looked back at Profile Lake as we walked:

We decided to take a different path to the Tramway parking lot, crossing a bridge across the wetlands above Profile Lake, and gazed back across Franconia Notch before we entered the woods:

It was nearing Noon, so we drove down to North Woodstock to look for takeout sandwiches for a picnic lunch.  We found some, and stopped at a local outlet, Smiley's Produce, to pick up some bags of locally roasted, whole bean coffee.  Then it was off in search of Beede Falls, further south, which we had heard would be a nice picnic stop.

The falls are located in the Bearcamp River in Sandwich Notch, in the Town of Sandwich.  It is located in Sandwich Notch Park, just outside the border of the White Mountain National Forest.

To get to the falls, we needed to drive 7 miles down Sandwich Notch Road, through the notch.  Along the road, which was a rough, rutted dirt road, we found several homesteads -- some occupied and some not.  This one looked deserted but it had a unique mailbox:

Chartered in 1763, the Town of Sandwich was named after the English Lord Sandwich.  During the early nineteenth century, thirty to forty families lived in the Notch. By 1860 only eight families lived in the Notch and by the turn of the twentieth century only one person, Moses Hall, lived in the Notch year-round. Now a private residence, the Hall Place, is the only house left on the Notch Road.

All the same, we found the parking lot and trailhead for Beede Falls and hiked eagerly over to find a suitable spot to cool down and eat lunch:

We finally reached Beede Falls, which has a total drop of 30 feet:

There were so many swimmers and gawkers at the main falls, that we decided to follow the trail further downstream, luckily finding a lower falls, where we could sit on rocks on cool our hot feet.  We munched our lunch and enjoyed the cool water:

With lunch done, it was time to head home and get some chores done before the thunderstorms close in later today.  We had drifted nearly an hour south of our campground, so we retraced our auto route back to our campground in Twin Mountain, New Hampshire.

We'll spend tomorrow preparing for our overnight to Lakes of the Clouds Hut.  Tune in to the results in our next blog entry.