Franconia Range

Franconia Range. . , The mountains you are looking at are part of the Franconia Range and like the rest of the White Mountains are among the oldest in the world. They date back to a period in geological time more than 400 million years ago when this area was covered by an inland sea.

In the millions of years that followed, the sea drew back from the land and sedimentary rocks were exposed. Great compressional forces creating heat and pressure, cuased physical and chemical changes to take place. This was followed by molten rock being thrust upward from deep within the earth. Erosion then removed many thousands of feet of metamorphic rock and exposed the granite underneath, leaving a low rolling plain with an elevation close to that of sea level. Some 60 million years ago a regional uplift began and the land surface was gradually raised to an elevation of between four and five thousand feet.

More than two million years ago, the great Ice Age reached this area and ice accumulated until these peaks were buried with ice up to a mile in thickness. As the Ice Age drew to a close, between 25,000 and 8,000 years ago, the old ice melted leaving the land much as you see it today. Since then weathering and erosion is again taking place as a geological force.

From these peaks, melting snows and summer rains cascade down the steep mountain sides helping to form the Pemigewasset River that drains Franconia Notch. Several miles of popular hiking trails lead up and across the Franconia Range, including the 2035 mile long Appalachian trail, a foot path that connects Springer Mountain in Georgia with Mount Katahdin in Maine.