New England Road Trip - Day 9 Flume Gorge

[Libby]

Saturday August 18th 2018

I didn’t wake until 7.30 today. I made coffee and then went back to bed to watch the weather channel. It was raining steadily outside and the tops of the mountains had disappeared into the cloud.
Our plans for today are Flume Gorge – a 2 mile or so walk through a glacial gorge – and Cannon Mountain Aerial tramway to get a view of 4 states plus Canada.

We thought visiting Flume Gorge would still be OK but Cannon mountain would be a waste of money as it seemed very likely we’d only get to see clouds.

We had a short drive to Flume Gorge and arrived about 10.30. The car park was quiet. The lady at the information desk recommended we just bought tickets for Flume Gorge but in the unlikely event of the cloud lifting we could still buy a discounted ticket for the tramway.

Flume Gorge was beautiful. I love forests and trees and everywhere here seemed very natural with just enough human intervention to protect the nature around them. There were glacial boulders with tree roots growing around them, waterfalls (improved by the extra rain), caves, covered bridges and the gorge itself with a boardwalk to prevent erosion from the many visitors to the attraction.
I loved this place. The walk wasn’t long but it was very steep in places and not being very fit it took me a while to get around. We spent a lot of time stopped taking photos or just enjoying the scenery. We were very taken with the cute chipmunks which didn’t seem too scared of humans.

In all it took about 2 hours to complete the walk. As we sat in the café afterwards it was clear that the weather wasn’t going to improve today so instead of paying to take the aerial tramway we decided to stay in the car and drive the Kancamagus Highway as our hotel was at one end of it.

Oh my, what an amazing drive in the height of summer – I can only begin to imagine how much better it would be in the fall. It was late August and already a few trees were beginning to turn red at their tips. It took us about an hour to drive to Conway. There were a few viewpoints along the way where we could stop and read the info boards and take pictures. There was no charge to stop at the designated viewpoints but I did notice that a park pass or payment is needed to stop at the various picnic areas and hiking trail car parks.
We stopped at Conway for lunch at a Dairy Queen before retracing our steps, stopping at different viewpoints on the other side of the road.

Back at the hotel I did a little laundry as I’d put my sleeve in the mayo at DQ. DD tried to use the wifi but it was rather unreliable – possibly because we were so far from reception.

We were too tired to eat out so got a take away and returned for card games and TV before bed.

[anji]

The gorge looks amazing and is on our list whilst we stay in the White Mountains. There's really so much to see and do there. Can't wait!

[disney owl]

beautiful views