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Published: July 23rd 2008
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taking you through Lost River Gorge. About 2.5-hour drive from Boston and we were in Franconia, New Hampshire. We have already entered White Mountain National Forest and all I can tell is that it's huge and there are several places to visit: waterfalls, view points, trails, caves, and forest. I definitely have things to keep me busy when I'm here again.
Lost River Gorge, just a few miles off of route 3 to the west, belongs to a private party and is open to public for a fee of $13. The entire trail is boardwalk helps protect plants on the ground from tourist's footsteps. I took pleasure in hiking on this twisty boardwalk, let it lead me up and down, to the left and to the right. It took me to where the water from the falls was dropped into a creek, then further up the water falls and there I could see the waterfalls from the bottom and from above and still be on the trail. As I was having fun with the boardwalk, another fun secretly awaited me, the caves. Even though I had taken pictures of the cave entrance prior to entering it at another cave, I somehow was so blind to realize
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doesn't it look fun? that that was the cave. All I had in mind was a big cave, huge entrance, and big halls on the inside. None of those describes the caves here.
Caves here are different in sizes and length. There are multiple caves and they are not connected. Or maybe I can call them mini caves or holes. Some of them take you close to the waterway that later throws itself down at the waterfalls, some others are more like a tunnel. The first cave I went in was more like a tunnel, didn't require any physical challenge. The second one though, I thought would be like the first one. I was wrong. I went in expecting it to have some light but it was completely dark. I thought I could walk upright through the cave but I actually had to crawl to get through the hole. I didn't realize what I had to do before knocking my head with a rock once and all the senses started to come together. I heard the water rushing so loud and so fast. I had no idea where the path would take me but I had no intention to turn back. I tried
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at Lost River Gorge to take a picture of the cave but all it came out was almost a complete darkness with one spot of my flash shown on the cave wall. I acted like a blind person. My sight was no longer useful so I relied heavily on my other two senses: touching and hearing. I reached my hand out to feel the cave wall, it was rough but cool and moist. I felt it from the top down to the bottom and finally found a hole. The touch told me the hole was small but probably big enough for me to get though. Okay, here I went. stuck stuck... I was still right that I could get through this small hole but not with my backpack on my back. So I unloaded backpack from my back and tossed it through the hole then I got down on my four paws and walked through the hole. It was like you're in a push up position except that you walk while in that position instead of pushing up. When I came out the lady whom I saw contemplating whether she would go in to the cave or not when I was going in was
still there and congratulated me for my success.
There were more caves for me to explore but it was already late afternoon so we headed out of there for our next stop, Flume Gorge, a few miles up the road. Flume Gorge is natural granite gorge extending 800 feet at the base of Mt. Liberty, rise to a height of 90 feet and are from 12-20 feet apart. The trail starts with dirt/gravel surface and later boardwalk when close to the gorge. It was quite an amazing view. From the distance I could see the 2 big granite walls standing tall up ahead. The path got narrower at the end of the gorge. Both walls were wet from water sprays from the small waterfalls. Again, nature reminds me how small I am and how powerful and strong they are.
As we walked further up passed the gorge, another waterfalls revealed itself-Angel Waterfalls. This falls is about 3-story high and the trail takes you pass the bottom and the top of the waterfalls. After this point we pretty much came to the end of attraction zone and made a loop to get back to the visitor center.
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Heather Kilpatrick
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green light
with the narrow spaces, and the light from above being filtered by so much greenery, it's like the light itself is growing green. Lovely photos.