The Flume and Old Man of the Mountain in New Hampshire
A summer day trip to the White Mountains took us to The Flume which is a natural gorge in Franconia Notch, NH extending 800 feet at the base of Mt. Liberty. The walls of granite rise to a height of 70 to 90 feet and range from 12 to 20 feet apart. The state park is almost 6,700 acres. Every year, hundreds of feet of the Flume pathway is removed due to large amounts of ice build up on the walls of the Flume Gorge. Ice can get 3 to 4 feet thick and rise up to 80 feet high on the walls of The Flume. The pathway is rebuilt every Spring to allow visitors to walk the Flume pathway.
The Basin is located in Lincoln, NH at the Franconia Notch State Park. It is a glacial "pothole" - believed to have been eroded 15,000 years ago while the North American ice sheet was melting. The Basin has been smoothed by small stones and sand, whirled around by the Pemigewasset River.
Our last sight brought us to The Old Man of the Mountain Memorial at Profile Plaza. The Old Man of the Mountain was a series of five granite cliff ledges on Cannon Mountain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire that appeared to be the jagged profile of a face when viewed from the North. The rock formation was 1,200 feet (370 m) above Profile Lake, and measured 40 feet (12 m) tall and 25 feet (7.6 m) wide. Freezing and thawing opened fissures in the Old Man's forehead. As early as the 1920's and forward, restoration measures were taken to secure it. However, on May 3, 2013 The Old Man collapsed. The town and state was devastated and decided to build a memorial through an extensive fund raising effort over a period of several years. Since then, 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.
Read MoreThe Basin is located in Lincoln, NH at the Franconia Notch State Park. It is a glacial "pothole" - believed to have been eroded 15,000 years ago while the North American ice sheet was melting. The Basin has been smoothed by small stones and sand, whirled around by the Pemigewasset River.
Our last sight brought us to The Old Man of the Mountain Memorial at Profile Plaza. The Old Man of the Mountain was a series of five granite cliff ledges on Cannon Mountain in the White Mountains of New Hampshire that appeared to be the jagged profile of a face when viewed from the North. The rock formation was 1,200 feet (370 m) above Profile Lake, and measured 40 feet (12 m) tall and 25 feet (7.6 m) wide. Freezing and thawing opened fissures in the Old Man's forehead. As early as the 1920's and forward, restoration measures were taken to secure it. However, on May 3, 2013 The Old Man collapsed. The town and state was devastated and decided to build a memorial through an extensive fund raising effort over a period of several years. Since then, 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.
