We set out early this morning knowing we were going to NH but not really sure what hikes we wanted to do. I’ve found so many off the beaten path places that look promising we knew we wouldn’t have nearly enough time to even scratch the surface. With yesterday’s heavy rain we figured the waterfalls would be impressive and knew we had to visit a couple. By the time we hit Gorham we both needed to find a bathroom so we made our way down to the Pinkham Notch visitor center at the base of Mt Washington.
While in the area we decided to check out Thompson Falls. A while back I came across an old painting of the falls and have been wanting to see them in real life ever since. We started at the Wildcat Mountain parking area and followed the mostly flat trail out to the falls where along the way we got to see a daring chipmunk leap from one boulder to another across a stream. The waterfall was amazing, I can’t believe I’ve never been there before considering the ease of the trail and its short distance to the road. The rain really made the river swell, most of the pictures I’ve seen of Thompson Falls weren’t nearly as spectacular as we saw today.
I decided to cross the brook to get a view of the falls from the other side, where Benjamin Champney had done his painting from. With the water level being higher than normal I wasn’t able to rock hop my way across but did find a convenient log downstream that I successfully tight roped across. Above the falls there were some more neat little cascades, especially with the high water levels. There was even a small side brook that fell between two boulders creating a sort of cave that made for some awesome pictures.
Down the road a ways we turned off in Jackson to check out the roadside falls along the Ellis River. I also knew there was an underground mine tunnel in the area that’s on my list of places to find. I hadn’t anticipated searching for the mine so didn’t have a detailed map of the area but figured I could pull it up on Google Earth since it was already loaded, just to a different part of the map. And of course the map was loaded to a point right before the mine so it was too blurry to make anything out. I went searching anyway and quickly found a maintained trail through the woods presumably made by the locals. It lead past some clear signs of old civilization. There was what appeared to be an old stone well surrounded by small stone structures that looked like they once housed natural spring water.
I almost missed it but there was also a wooden structure with a stone foundation. I took some pictures of the inside but it was too muddy to go in. After scouring the hillsides with no signs of the abandoned mine I gave up my search. Now that I can view the map I can see I was right around the corner from where the mine should be located, maybe 100 feet or so. I’ll definitely be going back to search for this one again.
Starving, we cut across the Bear Notch Rd up to the Kancamagus Highway and made it to Lincoln just before White Mountain Bagel closed at 3:00. Jaime got her favorite sandwich there while I got a Souvlaki from GH Pizza. The last two times we went I got one to take home and eat cold so I wanted to have a warm one, the way it was meant to be.
We went to my favorite picnic spot at Fay Forest along the river to eat
our delicious meals and were visited by a chipmunk and then a red
squirrel, both who posed for pictures. The chipmunk got so close I could have reached out and touched him, at one point we thought he was going to climb up Jaime’s leg. I think if I had food he actually wanted he would have eaten it right out of my hand. And as soon as the chipmunk left, a red squirrel took his place, getting close but not nearly as close as the chipmunk. I love little tree rodents so it was an excellent and very entertaining lunch.
From there we headed into Kinsman Notch so I could check out another waterfall just a mile or two up the road from Waternomee Brook which we explored a couple weeks ago during drier weather. I knew the falls would be raging today and wanted to check them out. We’d been to Clough Mine Brook one other time last Spring but only took a couple pictures from the pull off. This time I wanted to follow the brook up to some rock slabs known by bushwhackers as the Waternomee Waterslides.
The brook was incredible with one cascade after another, zigzagging their way down the mountainside. Most weren’t huge, maybe six foot drops or slides but they were all spectacular in their own way, certainly worth the trip, I even got to see one of them through a small cave. Then came an amazing ‘z’ shaped waterslide that cut through a ledge, unfortunately some of the view was blocked by a recently fallen tree, but man was this one something special. I figured I’d turn around here but could see some light up ahead and decided to go a little further. There were quite a few blowdowns along the brook as the terrain got more treacherous the higher I got, erosion flanked the narrow streambed making travel a little more difficult. I kept telling myself I’d turn around at the next cascade, hoping to find something noteworthy to turn around at, the peeing tree would work. With the high water levels, the brook came pouring over a rock that a large funny looking tree was growing out of. I’d turn around at the tree.
And there they were, the Waternomee Waterslides, pouring down a hundred foot ledge in the open sunlight, splashing into the small pool below the slanted wall of rock. I made it. Seeing something like that is awe inspiring when its on a path but when you stumble across it along a trail-less brook its something entirely different. To think that a waterfall this size doesn’t have a path to it is just insane. It literally took my breath away. Might have found a cool rock at the bottom of the falls that I would add to the collection of stones I planned on bringing back. I’ve been good lately but the large lumpy red rock was something I just had to have.
I carefully made my way up the rock slab, trying my best to avoid the trickles of water that strayed away from the main fall. The view opened up as I got higher, closing in on the cascades at the top of the waterslide. It reminded me of the Basin Cascade Trail where the water just keeps tumbling down flat rock ledges with no real end in sight. I stopped just shy of the top, knowing I would see something above that would beg me to continue on. But I was gone long enough and very slowly made my way down the dry portion of the waterslide, cutting across it side to side to alleviate some of the steepness.
I grabbed my red rock at the bottom and started my descent. Down a little further I stopped to examine my other cache of rocks, deciding to leave the two smaller ones behind and only grab one from that stash. So with a ten pound rock in each hand I carefully made my way down, opting to bushwhack rather than rock hop in order to save time. I took a step, no different from any other step I’d taken, only this time my foot didn’t land on solid ground. A thin layer of soil covered a gap between rocks and my entire leg disappeared into the forest floor. My outer thigh smashed into a rock, stopping my leg from going in any further. My natural instinct was to pull it out as fast as I could just in case there was an animal in the now exposed hole that wanted to eat me, but I could tell by the pressure that yanking it out would break a bone or two. I was able to turn my leg and pull it out with nothing more than some scratches and bruising, that could have been a lot worse. I did manage to hold onto both of my rocks and my bladder, didn’t even come close to peeing myself. Checked the backside, yep, good there as well, and I carried on, knowing that my knee wouldn’t be feeling too good come morning. I was right but it wasn’t that bad all things considered. I turned back after a few steps to photograph the hole and almost couldn’t find it, you would never suspect it was there, the ground looks perfectly normal. The pitfalls of bushwhacking.
I knew that was about it for me for the day, it was starting to get late anyway. We checked out the next pull off just a stone’s throw down the road which had a neat waterfall coming down beside an enormous boulder with caves in it. There’s another stream just a few feet away as well, both of which I plan on exploring at some point, a kind of two for one deal. The area was too broad and dark for the pictures to really come out though, but I have a feeling there’ll be some interesting cascades up higher. I haven’t been disappointed by Kinsman Notch yet.
Closer to town we stopped at a pull off we’d noticed last time and went down to check it out. The ledges and giant boulders offered no safe way down to the stream, until I noticed a cave. Between the ledge and a boulder was a passageway to the stream, a fifteen foot cave that lead right down to the water. Me being me, I had to crawl through it, winding up at a small rocky beach on the shore of the river. The cave was made up of an awesome looking quartz that really made me wish I had my chisel and hammer with me. Its not often you get to crawl through a cave that leads down to a river. It was something straight out of Lost River which is fitting because its actually on the Lost River, just a few miles downstream.
We gassed up and made our way back over the Kancamagus, stopping at Sabaday Falls along the way. When we stopped there a month ago it was raining and we were exhausted after a long day so Jaime didn’t go to the falls. This time she was determined and made it without any trouble. We got some cool pictures, she even accidentally found a setting on the camera that will really come in handy, the colors are so much more vivid now. We were even able to accurately capture how green the pool below the falls was.
Jaime requested we go back down Bear Notch Road the way we’d come so we could stop at the view points along the way since we didn’t have time on our way through before.
The goal was to make it out of NH before dark due to some construction that makes driving at night rather difficult but we were hungry and decided to stop at our favorite Dairy Queen. Sometimes we’ll have a craving for Dairy Queen, not the three we have here though, specifically the one in Bartlett or North Conway. I washed up my leg in the bathroom which burned like hell but the cut wasn’t too bad, I did notice I was starting to limp though. I could feel my knee hyper extending as it slipped into the hole but somehow contorted myself to stop it before too much damage was done. We ate in the lower parking lot looking over the lamps and picnic table before starting our journey home.
The section of road that was all torn up and under construction was horrible but the rest of the trip wasn’t bad, except for the fact that we were both dead tired. Jaime was asleep before I even hopped in the shower. I was out not long after. Another terrific day in the mountains that feel more like home than home does.
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