Franconia Notch State Park is the crown jewel of the western White Mountains, a dramatic glacially-carved pass along I-93 about 12 miles south of Littleton. The park compresses an extraordinary range of scenery and activities into one long valley, making it easy to spend a full day moving between its attractions.
The Flume Gorge is the most popular stop: a narrow granite chasm up to 800 feet long, with waterfalls and a series of wooden boardwalks threading through the slot canyon and emerging into the forest above. The entrance fee covers a loop walk of about two miles that includes the gorge, several waterfalls, and views across the valley. The Cannon Mountain Aerial Tramway lifts passengers 2,180 feet to the summit, where on clear days the view extends into Vermont, Maine, and Quebec. Echo Lake sits at the base of Cannon Mountain with a small beach and canoe and kayak rental in summer — one of the more scenic swimming spots in New Hampshire.
The park was once home to the Old Man of the Mountain, a natural rock formation on a clifftop that, when viewed from the right angle along Profile Lake, resolved into a stern human profile — forehead, nose, lips, and chin formed by five separate granite ledges. It appeared on the New Hampshire state quarter, licence plates, and road signs for decades, and when it collapsed overnight on 3 May 2003, the governor wept publicly. A series of profile markers along Profile Lake still let you line up where it once hung.
In winter, Cannon Mountain is a serious ski area, one of the oldest in New England, with challenging terrain and relatively modest lift prices compared to Vermont resorts. The Franconia Ridge trail — a high exposed loop over Mounts Lafayette and Lincoln — is among the finest mountain hikes in the northeastern United States and can be done as a day trip from Littleton in summer.