We drove out to Stark and down the South Pond Recreation road to do Devil’s Hopyard, hoping to complete what we couldn’t fifteen years ago. But the gate was up which would mean a mile walk just to get to the start of the trail, a trail that would be wet from last night’s heavy rain. So we moved on, making our way up north towards Dixville Notch.
First we went to Beaver Falls, just north of Colebrook. Jaime and myself had never been there before. The falls were amazing, even after a dry summer. It was rather cold out, somewhere in the 40’s but we had fun exploring the bottom of the falls. I climbed up the steep slope a little ways to get some amazing photos and I could feel the mist coming off the falls. I also found some cool rocks at the bottom but one was too big to bring back so I grabbed my hammer and chisel but the rock was too hard to break so I said screw it and brought it back in my pack anyway. I’ll chisel it down later.
We stopped to eat our picnic lunch at Huntington Cascades and then did some exploring. Jaime did good on the hike to the falls and even went up the steep trail beside them. I made it down into the ravine, something I’ve wanted to do since we first saw the falls in 2009. I went up quite a ways, getting a closer look at the upper falls that are skewed by trees from up above on the trail. We did some rock hunting down bottom in the same river we got the stones for the walkway to our hose spout.
Jaime made it up to the ledges around Index Rock, even with her bad knee. Mom and Dad were amazed by its otherworldly feel. It is such an awe inspiring place, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. On our way down me and Jaime were looking for a rock I wanted to grab last year but missed on the way down, all I remembered was that it was on the corner of one of the many switchbacks. Jaime spotted a cool yellow quartz rock on a steep section below the trail. I couldn’t safely get down to it so we went around the switchback to a spot below the rock and I used the trees to pull myself up to it. It was well worth the hassle, the rock was one of the most amazing I have ever seen. It took a lot of chiseling, my hands were ringing hours later, but I broke off two large chunks and some smaller pieces in the process. Mom absolutely loved the yellow crystallized rock so I gave her some of the bigger pieces that broke off. So glad I brought my mining tools with me.
We finished up Dixville Notch with a short trip to the Baby Flume. The water was fairly low but still higher than we can ever remember seeing in the notch. I managed to rock hop and scale some ledges all the way to the base of the falls which was cool, somewhere I’ve wanted to go since our first trip here six years ago. There’s just something about standing at the foot of a waterfall.We went to Mountain Fire Pizza again, it was better than last time. Our waitress was really good and the pizzas weren’t burnt at all. Easily the best pizza I’ve ever had. A good way to spend our last night in Gorham. Tomorrow we head down to Lincoln for the longer part of our vacation. But we plan to hang around the Gorham area tomorrow to check out some waterfalls. I originally wanted to do Tuckerman Ravine but Mom and Dad said it’s a tough trail and didn’t really want to do it so we’ll just go up a little ways to Crystal Cascade and then back down to see some more falls and start our slow trip to Lincoln.
Left : rocks from Beaver Falls
Right : yellow quartz from Index Rock
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