The Flume

I went to school at Plymouth State College, like a half hour south of the White Mountains for 4 years, and lived there for half a year afterwards. I was an idiot and barely spent any time in the mountains. I decided that it was high time that I hit up one of the most touristy destinations in the area- The Flume Gorge.
So, after a night of partying, a horrible night of couch sleep, and a way too big but tasty meal at the Tilton Diner, I found myself sitting around waiting to see if people wanted to go to the Flume, followed by the best place ever (more on that later). After much too long of waiting, Primus Dan and I finally just decided that we needed to go at that instant, and if it meant going alone, then so be it. We hit the road and drove a solid hour north to the place that apparently everyone else in NH was going to on an 85 degree October day.

We basically had to park ON the highway, walking past tour bus after tour bus full of mostly every Indian person in New England. Not trying to sound racist or anything, it was just weird to be at this place in Northern NH and see so few white people, and also see mostly Indian people- and a bus full of Quakers (at least I think). It was odd.

We stood in line for a solid 10 minutes to find out that it cost 14 bucks to walk up the 2 mile trail. 14 DOLLARS?! To walk on a bridge over rocks with tourists? Pardon my language, but are you fucking kidding me? Dan was pretty much instantly out, and I was deterred, but decided that we had driven all the way there, and had never seen it, let's just suck it up and pay. So we did. I have no idea how they decided on 14 bucks- the place looked like it needed zero upkeep other than picking up trash. There were no guides, there wasn't much- just a building, a gift shop, an enormous parking lot, and the Flume Gorge itself.  Kind of absurd, but I guess that's what you get when New Hampshire natives figure out they can charge tourists that much money to go outside. I guess I can't blame them- I probably would be charging 20.

All that aside though, after walking a solid half mile up a dirt road before actually getting to the river, and us figuring out that it probably wouldn't be very hard to sneak in, we actually both grew to really like the place.

The Flume Gorge is basically just a river cutting through huge rocks, with small waterfalls and some huge ones too. It's all very pretty, and they built a nice walkway that zig-zagged through the whole thing. It was easy to see why this was such a tourist destination.

There was a lot of waiting in line and waiting for people to stop taking pictures, 

but overall, it was a really neat spot:

It definitely felt pretty cool to stand right next to raging torrents of river on a neatly put together walkway. It was also surprisingly cold and somewhat breezy in there too, which was quite nice considering it really was 85 degrees out.

There were also some caves to explore on the way up, but it had rained a few days before (and the whole area was kind of wet from splashing water), so we didn't want to get all wet and muddy. We're also not exactly the size of people who should probably be crawling through tiny little caves- we're more built for posing in front of them awkwardly. 

The higher we went, the waterfalls got bigger. 

Eventually we were on top of everything, and looking at a pretty big drop of 130 feet into 40 foot deep water. Apparently this area is the start of the Pemigewasset River, which I never knew. I didn't realize there would be as much of an elevation gain on this, and was surprised at how nice the views got the higher we went.

There were a lot of quick downhills to lookouts. I couldn't get pictures of some of the better ones due to the 100% absence of clouds in the sky and my iphone not being able to cut through it, but if you go, definitely walk to all of the lookouts, the views are great. 

Dan getting all emo in nature

The last real view we saw was of Liberty Mountain, Flume Mountain and another mountain I can't remember. It was a fairly spectacular representation of fall in New Hampshire, especially in HDR. 

We followed the Quakers out, 

and headed to the best place ever, which will have a separate post. The Flume was definitely a pretty cool place, and I'm happy I went. I got some awesome views, and finally got to cross it off my list of places I've always been curious about visiting but never did. Was it worth 14 bucks? I'd say it was more like an 8-10 dollar trip. But we had fun.

currently listening to: Local Natives- Gorilla Manor