Franconia Notch State Park - Flume Gorge

Author's Comments

The gorge is loud. That is the first thing I noticed, and it is the thing I keep forgetting between visits. Flume Brook moves fast through that narrow cut of granite, and the sound bounces off the walls in a way that makes the whole place feel pressurized. The boardwalk is narrow, the walls rise close on either side, and the light comes down in a green filtered hush that holds even at midday. I go in June, when the moss is at its most saturated and the brook is still running high from snowmelt. Mornings only. The boardwalk gets crowded by ten and the gorge is not a place that tolerates crowds well - it is a single-file experience, and there is nowhere to step aside to wait for the frame to clear. Arrive when the gates open. Bring a tripod. The interior is darker than your eye registers, and the long exposures are the photographs worth making here. Waterfall against wet granite, the moss going almost luminous in the diffused light, the brook smoothed to silk against the textured rock. Avalanche Falls at the far end is the obvious subject and a good one. But I find the middle of the gorge more interesting - the places where the walls press in and the boardwalk turns and you cannot see what is ahead or behind. There is a claustrophobic intimacy there that the wider compositions lose. A detail shot of moss and water and stone, made carefully, will hold up better than the postcard frame of the falls. The gorge rewards the photographer who slows down inside it.

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