TRIP REPORT - Georgiana Falls & Bog Eddy

Bogs aren’t exactly appealing, even the word bog conjures up an image of a brownish pool of sludge. How many hikes in the White Mountains lead you to a swamp as the final destination? Are there any? When you factor in that there’s no actual trail leading to the remote area, you might question why I’m bringing you here. It’s still early in the book, we haven’t built up that kind of trust yet. When you’re standing at the water’s edge, you won’t question me a second longer.

Bog Eddy is located on a shelf on the western slopes of the Kinsman Ridge, situated between Mt Wolf and Indian Head, also known as Mt Pemigewasset. You might have seen it from the summit of Indian Head and thought nothing of the large marshy area. You’d never guess that this marsh actually has a better view than the popular ‘Native American Noggin’ itself. If you’ve ever ventured out to Georgiana Falls, you’ve seen the water that drains the bog. Like so many other great places in these mountains, Bog Eddy has been lost to time. Almost.

To get there we’re going to take the Georgiana Falls trail, located off Route 3 in Lincoln. To the left of Rodeway Motor Inn is Hanson Farm Road where you’ll find a gravel parking area just after the bridge. Park your car and go through the gate, bearing right onto the Georgiana Falls Trail.

The trails starts off gently as an old road, passing under the highway and meeting up with Harvard Brook in half a mile. The road is fairly eroded and wet most of the year but we quickly lose it as we continue up a more traditional trail full of roots, rocks and muddy areas to navigate around.

The hike to the lower falls is an easy one but after you’ve scrambled up the rock slabs beside them, the trail gets a bit difficult. Okay, that might be understating it. You’ll look up ahead like you want me to climb what, are you nuts? The trail can’t possibly go up there. But it does and I apologize in advance. This one is steep. Luckily, it’s only about 0.3 mile further to the upper falls.

This upper cascade is the actual Georgiana Falls you see from the interstate around the Lincoln exits. It’ll look like a tiny white line on the mountainside. A lot of people tend to miss this impressive waterfall, assuming the lower cascade is the main attraction. I also have a sneaking suspicion they took one look at the trail beyond the much smaller lower falls and decided that form of torture wasn’t worth it. This trail has been notoriously rough since its inception in the late 1800s, in fact many hikers began to assume that the 80 foot cascade was merely a myth and turned around before ever reaching it. You’ll know you’ve made it to the real Georgiana Falls when you’re standing across the deep ravine from a breathtaking cascade that’s so large you can’t quite see the bottom. This is where the bushwhack begins and in a rare turn of events, it’s easier than the official trail. Once you’ve climbed some boulders in a dry streambed to the right of the falls, I promise, it gets less intense.

On this side of the brook there’s barely any bushwhacking involved, we’ll actually be following a faint path that leads upstream to a series of cascades once known as Harvard Falls. In this waterfall enthusiast’s opinion, the first fall above Georgiana is more impressive than the lower falls many hikers wrongly assume is the main attraction. What’s even better, it looks best during lower water levels when the stream glides down a steep slab before freefalling into a turbulent pool. High water tends to take away some of the cascade’s character.

Just above the former Harvard Falls, we’ll leave the faint path we’ve been following and head upstream to another cascade that cuts diagonally across a rock ledge. Unfortunately, when the water is high, this fall is hard to get a good look at and when it’s low, there isn’t much to see.

When you’ve reached the zigzagging cascade, that’s your cue to cross the brook. Once you’ve found the safest route across you’re going to cut through the woods in a straight line for a few hundred feet. Bushwhacking this far from civilization can be nerve racking but it’s not as bad as it seems. In not even 0.1 mile you’ll run into a maintained snowmobile trail. Remember at the beginning of the hike when you veered to the right in order to stay on the Georgiana Falls Trail? The snowmobile trail you meet up with after your short bushwhacking excursion is where you would have ended up had you gone straight. You mean we just climbed up all that when we could have taken an old road that climbs gradually rather than straight up an eroded embankment using the freakin’ roots as a ladder?! Technically, yes, we could have but then we would have missed all the spectacular waterfalls along the way. I understand if you hate me now. But hey, our way was much shorter.

Once you hit the former road turned snowmobile trail, take a right and follow it uphill at a very gentle grade. In 0.3 mile the road passes a marshy area high on the ridge known as Bog Eddy. The view from here is truly something else, however, a few pesky trees get in the way from this vantage point so we’re going to continue along the snowmobile trail a few hundred feet further. You’ll notice a small wooded peninsula jutting into the swamp with a makeshift firepit at the height of land. Follow the strip of dry land out as far as you can, the drier the weather the better. During a rainless summer you can actually get quite far into the wetland where the view opens up before you. Rocky shoulders of Mt Wolf and the Kinsman Ridge rise steeply to your left, straight ahead lie the impressive cliffs that form the face of the famous Indian Head, and to your right is a stunning view of the dramatic Franconia ridgeline, complete with the majestic Mt Liberty and the slide-scarred face of Mt Flume. This view far exceeds any expectations I had for the remote swamp. I promise you, you will not be disappointed.

     For the return trip, you have the option of going the way you came but we’re going to follow the snowmobile trail back to the car. You probably weren’t exactly looking forward to descending the Georgiana Falls Trail anyway. The snowmobile route is quite a bit longer at 3.3 miles and although there’s nothing to see along the way, it is much easier. You can also use this longer route if the water is too high to cross or yes, if you insist, I suppose you could use it if the close to vertical sections of the infamous Georgiana Falls Trail sound a little outside of your comfort zone. Whether you choose the short and tough route or the long and tedious one, the view from Bog Eddy is one you simply cannot miss.

(as seen in The White Mountains You Haven't Seen: Volume One, available now)