Arethusa Falls Hiking Trip
Yesterday Jonathan and Melody and I went for a hike in the White Mountains Of New Hampshire. We plan to do a few hikes this summer, and wanted to start with an easy hike. So we settled on Arethusa Falls, which is located in Crawford Notch State Park, near Bartlett, New Hampshire.Click here for my review of the Arethusa Falls hike posted at Amateur-Hikers.com
It was a rainy day, but I had fun anyway - I don't know about anyone else, though.
Arethusa Falls is the highest waterfall in New Hampshire, and it is right off route 302 right by the southern end of the Crawford Notch State Park. There are two trails you can take to get to the falls. The first (the one we took) is the "Arethusa Falls Trail". The other is the "Frankenstein Cliffs" trail. The two trails can be done as a loop, and I really wanted to hike the frankenstein trail, which went over a massive cliff formation (the Frankenstein Cliffs, of course!). Unfortunately, because of the rainy weather, the trails were somewhat muddy, so we didn't think we should tackle the cliffs, since there are some fairly steep sections on that trail.
The hike up the Arethusa Falls Trail is an easy one. Not very steep, and only 1.2 miles. The downside is that you're mostly traveling through the woods, so you don't see very many grand views. Of course, on a day like yesterday, we wouldn't have seen much anyway. I expect all the views were along the Frankenstein Cliffs Trail.
We were quite interested by the names of the bridges along the trail; one bridge was named "The King's Highway Bridge" (or something like that...Jonathan said it was a Biblical reference) and the other was "The Bridge Of Khazad Dum". That's right. We crossed the Bridge of Khazad Dum. And there was neither a balrog chasing us, nor a wizard telling us we shall not pass!
We brought a lunch with us, but since it was raining when we got to the falls we just stopped long enough to take some pictures (I'll post a picture or two here at some point...if they came out good!) and then we turned around and hiked back, and had lunch in the car.
As you stand in the parking lot, you can see the cliffs looming overhead, and seeing that, I really want to go back on a sunny day and try the hike again, this time venturing over the cliffs!
More information about the hike
If you hike the loop, doing both the Arethusa Falls Trail and the Frankenstein Cliffs Trail, you have a total hike length of about 5 miles. And it is estimated that it will take the average hiker about 3 hours. If you just do in-and-out on the shorter trail, it's only a couple hours.
One site I looked at said there was an elevation change of 1,250 feet. However, I do believe you only get that elevation change if you do the cliffs. The trail we hiked was far too shallow a slope to provide that kind of elevation gain.
Several sites claim that this is a very popular tourist attraction, and you should be prepared to share the falls and the trails with a LOT of people. However, since it was raining yesterday, we only saw a few hikers straggling along the trails, and none of us stayed very long at the falls.
The trail is very well worn (see previous paragraph about tourists!) so you never have any difficulty trying to figure out which direction to go. The trail is also very clearly marked with blue blazes.
Click here for my review of the Arethusa Falls hike posted at Amateur-Hikers.com
Posted On May 31, 2005 at 5:14 AM
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