Distance: 3.2 Miles oneway
Difficulty: Easy
The waterfall and natural waterslide can be dangerous, please use caution.
Located east of Lincoln, New Hampshire off of the Kancamagus Highway is Lincoln Woods. This is the trailhead to several local trails. The primary purpose of our visit was to hike to Franconia Falls. This hike has been on my to do list for a long time with the goal of checking out the natural waterslide.
We parked in the lot for Lincoln Woods and paid the fee to park here. There is a ranger station and bathroom facilities, making it easier to change into our bathing suites for the hike. We started the hike by crossing a bridge that goes over the East Branch of the Pemigewasset River.
Then took a right and followed the trail. This is probably one of the most flat trails in the White Mountains.
Most people were hiking this trail, but we also saw a couple people riding their bikes.
The trail to Franconia Falls was very easy to follow. There were signs along the way to direct you.
It was a 3.2 mile hike from the parking lot to the Franconia Falls. There were signs everywhere cautioning you to be careful as the water can be dangerous. The waterfall is beautiful.
For those a little more daring there is a narrow natural waterslide that drops you 7-8 feet into a small pool. The challenge is that depending on the time of year the pool has some strong currents that can pull you under. Our almost 13 year old daughter did the slide, but we had to help her out of the current. Stronger swimmers did better, but my husband did have to help a couple people out, who could not get away from the current. My daughter said she is not ready to do the slide again anytime soon.
Right before my daughter went down the natural waterslide.
There are a couple spots that you can get in the pools to swim around or slide down smaller rocks.
We spent 3-4 hours laying on the rocks, enjoying the falls and swimming in the pools. I was a little worried that we were going to be tired walking the 3.2 miles back out to our car, but we were not. Since it was an easy flat walk, it went by quickly. Overall, we loved the hike to Franconia Falls and enjoyed the swimming hole. Since it is a bit of a hike there were not a lot of people there, which was nice.
