Franconia Ridge-#1 rated New Hampshire Hike

Franconia ridge hike is the most popular hike in New Hampshire.

Hikers who know both West and East, you know how many trees in the New England. In addition, altitude is not very high in the East compared to West. Thus, a lot of hikes are below treeline, in the forest. Usually only the small portion of a hike is rocky above tree line with view, and many hikes never get out of forest without open views. Based on that, Franconia ridge hike is categorized unusual in New England in a good way. The biggest reason is one third of the hike of 8 miles is on the ridge with quite open view. I totally understand why this is so popular. As you can see in the picture, ridge walk has a good view. 

Due to this popularity, the parking lot is insane. The lot is large, at least 40 cars can be parked, but it will be full by 8 a.m. On this hike we left the Boston area at 4 a.m., and arrived at the parking by 7 a.m. Already 2/3 is full by then. People used to park along the highway because of the situation. The parking along highway was over 1 mile. So.Many.Cars were parked. Yes, you can imagine it is not safe to park along highway. State of New Hampshire thought so too (phew, good), and one day they put a red cone along the highway. Each cone is tied with rope with next cone so that car can't park. The rope-tied corns continues more than 1 mile to north and south. 

In addition to the ridge portion, Franconia falls on the way is pretty. This is another plus for this hike. In contrast to West, East is much more wet, meaning more lakes, river, or falls. Franconia falls have a lot of water due to snow melt in May. This is nice to check it out. Your feet will be wet for river crossing, though. I used to wear waterproof hiking shoes, but some point I switched to non-waterproof. You can stay dry just going through small paddle with waterproof shoes, but if your feet have to go in the river many times? Waterproof shoes get wet and now never get dry. In contrast, non-waterproof shoes can get much quicker when they get wet. If you go for a real adventure, actually non-waterproof shoes work better. 

One more interesting thing about this hike: Greenleaf hut. New England has mountain hut system. You can stop by a hut and most of the time potable water is available. This is nice to take a rest. If you are interested, they sell coffee cake, tea (just tea packs), lemonade, brownies, chips etc. I don't like any of those, so I have never bought them, but if I was in a real hunger, I would. This Greenhut has hut dogs (2 doggies!) and they lay down on the floor. I pet them and they are calm and cute. I love hut pets. European huts usually have cats (probably for rodent hunt). I loved petting those cats during Tour du Mont Blanc.