Best Hotels near Franconia Notch State Park
The White Mountains, which compose the highest country in the Northeast, offer truly spectacular scenery, and with accommodations here at the Mountain Club on Loon, you’re right in the heart of the beauty-scape. Some of the defining landscapes of this crowning pinnacle of the Northern Appalachians await you within shouting distance of our luxurious slopeside resort, and among them most definitely is Franconia Notch.
Franconia Notch: A Legendary Defile in the White Mountains
Franconia Notch creates a pivotal pass through the White Mountains, dramatically framed by 4,080-foot Cannon Mountain on one side—part of the Kinsman Range—and 5,249-foot Mount Lafayette of the Franconia Range—the second-highest section of the Whites after the Presidential Range—on the other. It’s an immensely scenic corridor that’s long served as a travel route, nowadays followed by the Franconia Notch Parkway.
The Old Man of the Mountain (or the Great Stone Face), a visage-like granite outcrop on Cannon Mountain so iconic it showed up on New Hampshire license plates, overlooked Franconia Notch until 2003, when it collapsed.
Franconia Notch State Park
Franconia Notch State Park puts the scenery of this White Mountain pass on full display. Take the aerial tramway up to the top of Cannon Mountain for some epic vistas, and learn more about the geological story and cultural significance of the toppled Old Man of the Mountain. Go swimming, paddling, or fishing off the beachfront of Echo Lake, or stroll to the glacially scoured pothole known as the Basin.
At the south end of Franconia Notch lies one of the park’s most famous natural features: the Flume Gorge, a tight granite cleft up to 90 feet deep and between 12 and 20 feet wide. A 93-year-old woman, “Aunt” Jess Guernsey, stumbled across the Flume in 1808 while out fishing. You can walk through this narrow gorge and admire the 45-foot drop of Avalanche Falls at its head.
The Franconia Notch Recreational Trail and the Franconia Notch Bike Path offer miles of fresh-air exploration amid one of the signature mountainscapes of New Hampshire.
Visit Franconia Notch on a Mountain Club at Loon Getaway
Besides enjoying the scenic beauty on offer right here at Loon Mountain, we highly recommend you take a daytrip to Franconia Notch State Park on your getaway with us and enjoy its looming granite ledges, its whitewater defiles, and its remarkable interweave of geological and human history. We happen to think our corner of New England claims some of America’s loveliest vistas, and one visit to Franconia Notch should be enough to convince you as well!