The Franconia Range, part of the White Mountains, is among the oldest mountain systems in the world. It dates to more than 400 million years ago, when this area lay beneath an inland sea. Over millions of years, the sea retreated and sedimentary rocks were exposed, then great compressional forces generated heat and pressure that caused physical and chemical changes, followed by molten rock thrust upward from deep within the earth. Erosion later removed many thousands of feet of metamorphic rock and exposed the granite beneath, leaving a low rolling plain near sea level. About 60 million years ago, a regional uplift gradually raised the land surface to between four and five thousand feet. More than two million years ago, the Ice Age reached this area and ice accumulated until the peaks were buried under ice up to a mile thick. As the Ice Age ended, between 25,000 and 8,000 years ago, the old ice melted and left the land much as it appears today. Since then, weathering and erosion have continued shaping the landscape, while melting snows and summer rains flow down the steep mountain sides to help form the Pemigewasset River, which drains Franconia Notch. Popular hiking trails cross the range, including the 2035 mile long Appalachian Trail, a footpath connecting Springer Mountain in Georgia with Mount Katahdin in Maine.

Photo: Beverly Pfingsten

Lincoln, New Hampshire · USA