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Tips for Visiting Franconia Notch State Park in Winter

Welcome to our first blog! I wanted to write a brief blog with tips for visiting Franconia Notch State Park in winter. Franconia Notch is in the Northern part of New Hampshire. In the wintertime, Franconia is popular for skiing, snowboarding, and winter hiking. And for good reason! The area is incredibly beautiful, covered in dry, fluffy snow for most of the winter. With temperatures ranging from -10 to 30 degrees, New Hampshire is cold! However, with the right clothing and gear, winter activities can be a lot of fun!

Grant and I had 24 hours to spend in Franconia Notch State Park during our December 2025 trip. We drove up to photograph an elopement for friends of ours, and afterwards spent 24 hours exploring the best parts of the park we could.

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Visiting Franconia Notch

#1 – For our first tip for visiting Franconia Notch State Park in winter, we recommend a few stops. For your first stop, we recommend Echo Beach. Echo Beach features a large, easily accessible parking lot located directly below the Cannon Mountain Ski Resort. Though the parking lot will most likely not be plowed, it will be packed with snow and easy to navigate. There isn’t much walking around the lake in the winter, and, obviously, the lake will be frozen over, so you can’t go on it. However, the mountains in the background create a stunning backdrop to the wintry, frozen landscape.

#2 – From here, we recommend the Artist Bluff hike. This is a fairly easy 1.5-mile loop. Franconia Notch State Park is beautiful in the winter, and this overlook really showcases its frozen beauty. There are two lookouts, but the most famous is the Artist Bluff overlook. It is roughly half a mile to this overlook, but you can keep going to see the Bald Mountain overlook as well. This hike is extremely popular in the fall, and is usually very busy! In the wintertime, you’ll find it pretty empty. We were the only people on the trail when we went, around 8 am on a Sunday morning. You have to park in the Cannon Mountain Parking lot at the top of the hill, or access it by scrambling up an unmarked path on the side of the hill from the Echo Beach parking lot. We recommend starting at the official trailhead to avoid damaging vegetation. Remember, stay on marked trails! The hike itself is very easy! Most of the hike is not too steep, with a few up-and-down sections that wind along the side of the mountain. The last stretch is a much steeper scramble over rocks to get to the overlook. We recommend wearing crampons on your boots in winter for better traction and using hiking or trekking poles. We used poles, and they were a lifesaver on the snow and ice! Unfortunately, our crampons didn’t work with our boots, so we didn’t wear them. However, we definitely wished we had a good pair for that hike.

artist bluff overlook in winter in franconia notch state park new hampshire

#3 – After your hike, we recommend checking out the Basin and the Basin Cascade trail! We loved this hike. It is 2.5 miles if you complete the entire hike, but it is likely only around a quarter of a mile if you hike to the Basin and turn around. It was easy, mostly flat and partially paved, and it walks you alongside a creek. We thoroughly enjoyed this winter hike, taking in the stunning views of the frozen waterfalls and icicles that formed on the rocks. We ended up not hiking the whole Cascade Trail as the water was completely frozen over, so we couldn’t see the waterfalls. The trail was also pretty icy, but incredibly beautiful!

tripdic of images of winter wonderland in the woods

#4 – Lastly, we’d suggest checking out the Flume Gorge Trail. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to explore this trail, as a weather front was moving in, and we decided to head home a day early to avoid it. The photos we’ve seen of it in winter look incredible! This is technically considered closed during the winter, as the park removes the boardwalks by the waterfall to prevent people from hurting themselves. However, we’ve read that you can still hike around and see some of the sights.