Our Favorite New Hampshire Hikes

The familiar landscapes are some of the most fun to visit and get reacquainted with. It’s been a long time since we've had the chance to hike in New Hampshire and there is no shortage of hiking options! I could spend four hours hiking every day and not get bored with it. Even the hikes I visit again and again seem to give me a different experience each time I visit.

Being in the heart of the White Mountains means easy access to a lot of trails. Jim warned me that no one would be interested in a dozen blog posts about hiking, not even him and he went on most of the hikes. Oh Jim. So, in the interest of keeping my memories succinct, here are my top five hikes in the area.

Franconia State Park—The Flume

This is a classic. It's a great family hike and it's worth the $$$ (especially since all the other trails in Franconia State Park are FREE!). There are so many cool geological things to see on this one. We were actually quite lucky to get this trail almost all to ourselves (should I say thanks Covid?). Like many popular national and state parks, Franconia State Park put a reservation system in place to ensure social distancing when visiting The Flume. This meant that would we be guaranteed it would be less crowded. Also, when making your reservation, the system tells you how many available slots there are. They allow 200 people per hour so it was easy to pick a nice sunny summer afternoon where only twenty reservations were taken.

I’m a fan of geology and the rock formations along this trail gives you plenty to explore. The story of its discovery is pretty neat:

The Flume was discovered in 1808 by 93-year-old  “Aunt” Jess Guernsey when she accidentally came upon it while fishing. She had trouble convincing her family of the marvelous discovery, but eventually persuaded others to come and see for themselves. At that time, a huge egg-shaped boulder hung suspended between the walls. The rock was 10 feet high and 12 feet long. A heavy rainstorm in June of 1883 started a landslide that swept the boulder from its place. It has never been found.

I can just picture 93-year old “aunt” Jess coming back from fishing telling her family all about this slot canyon and the family chalking it up to an old lady's crazy stories.

Like pretty much any trail in the White Mountains the glacial erratics on this trail are very cool with many growing trees on top of them.

Franconia Ridge Loop Trail: Falling Water Trail to Little Haystack, Mount Lincoln, Mount Lafayette and down past the AMC Hut back to the start

This one is number one for the views, but be prepared to see an obscene number of people if you do it during the summer. I'm not a fan of sharing the trails with other people. I always said I didn't ski because I hated the idea of sharing the mountain with anyone else. I love that people are enjoying nature; I just wish they'd do it when I'm not there 😂

This was my first time doing the full hike. Jim hiked it twenty years ago with our friend Kel while my mom and I hung out at the creek with our dog Max. I remember sitting there for what seemed like forever waiting for them to finish. This is not a hike for the casual non-hiker. It’s a lot of uphill- steep uphill. Jim can tell you about his experience of this hike 20 years ago and now.

Back in the nineties of the old 1900’s, I embarked on this hike with our friend Kel. At the time, fitness wasn't much of a presence in my life. Though I had youth on my side, I was wholly unprepared. I don't know why I agreed to hike this and I don't remember whose idea it was. The main thing I remember is that most of the way up, Kel kept telling me we were almost there. For hours I heard this over and over again. My feet felt like lead and when we reached the first summit I was very relieved until I realized we still had more climbing to do. To this day, “we’re almost there” is a teasing refrain Kel, Carrie, Ann, and I say regularly to each other.

This trail has it all: waterfall after waterfall on the way up, an exposed ridge line with views, three distinct mountain tops, an AMC hut, and more.

Mount Willard

This was Jim’s top pick for a hike with a view.

Mount Willard is an easy hike with a huge payoff in the view of Crawford Notch Valley at the end. At least there was a fantastic view while we sat and ate lunch. We could see the clouds rolling in though and hear thunder rolling in the distance as we ate our lunch. About halfway down the trail it started sprinkling and we were in a full rain by the time we got to the car.

But back to the view… This has to be one of the easiest/shortest hikes to one of the best views in the White Mountains. Looking out over the deep glacial gorge is pretty amazing. So many hiking views are from the top of a mountain looking down at surrounding peaks. It’s a nice change to have the valley view.

We liked this trail so much, we did it a second time with some new nomad-ish friends. One of my favorite things about travel is the opportunity to meet other people. It was a no-brainer when a friend asked if I was up for an introduction to a few other slow travelers in the area. I love hearing how others have found the travel lifestyle. If you know someone where we are that you think we would hit it off with, feel free to reach out. I'm always up for meeting new friendly faces.

Mount Jackson

Now, the way we hiked this was NOT the way I would hike it again. I’m not into “peak bagging” and I don’t have any goals of hitting the NH 48 (forty-eight 4,000 footer mountains in the White Mountains) just as I never had an itch to do the complete list of 14ers (fifty-four 14,000 footer mountains in Colorado). I like a good hike- and I love a good view, but that’s not all I look for in a hike. I want an interesting trail. One that changes as you gain elevation or hit a south-facing/north-facing slope. So why I felt the need to hit all 3 of these peaks on this one hike, I’ll never know. Mount Webster had a nice view, but the really outstanding view was from Mount Jackson. We should have stopped there! We were at 4ish miles and could have easily taken the trail down 2.2 miles directly to our car in the parking lot making for a perfect 6ish mile hike. But I had planned on hitting Mount Pierce. And to be honest, the elevation profile from Jackson to Pierce looked like nothing- what is another 1,000 feet in elevation when you’ve already hit a few thousand? Well, when you are relying on Alltrails for mileage and elevation gain, what you think is only another 1,000 feet in elevation gain could really be 1,500. I should know better than rely on Alltrails!

Franconia Falls

This has to be on the list of favorites. It is a ridiculously easy hike- just a little long. The first 3 miles of trail is a wide, flat path along the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River that used to be the bed of a railroad. It’s only the last 0.2 to 0.3 miles that is the rocky, root-strewn trail you’d typically find in the White Mountains. But the end point! Falls, and rock slides galore! We had the end of the trail to ourselves and enjoyed the quiet views around us as we ate our picnic lunch. As we traced our path back to the start, we saw a number of swimming holes and even saw people swimming - brrrrr! It was a perfect fall day in the mid-70s, but way too cold for me to even consider dipping a toe in. Although, Jim almost had to take a dip to retrieve his sunglasses. Fortunately for him, he found a long enough stick to drag them out of the pool they fell into. I had my camera ready in case he fell in - because, well, you have to be ready to capture the moments, right? 😂

I think the first 3 miles of this trail would be great to bike. Lock up your bike and pop up that last 0.3 miles for a picnic and a dip. If we had bikes, I would have definitely come back to do that.