Arethusa Falls Crawford Notch
— — the long fall the wood keeps in winter.
Not only on a wall.
“One of the tallest waterfalls in New Hampshire, dropping clean off a granite shelf into Bemis Brook below. The trail leaves Route 302 a mile south of the Notch and climbs about 1.3 miles through hemlock and yellow birch to the base. In winter the column freezes into a blue pillar that ice climbers post fixed lines on. In summer the spray reaches the far rocks. — from the studio
Arethusa Falls Crawford Notch, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Arethusa Falls sits in Crawford Notch State Park, in the town of Hart's Location, New Hampshire — the least-populated town in the state by a wide margin. The falls drop about 140 feet over a single granite ledge into Bemis Brook, a tributary of the Saco River. The trailhead is signed off U.S. Route 302, roughly a mile south of the Frankenstein Trestle. The hike runs 1.3 miles one way over moderately rocky ground and climbs about 700 feet to the base of the falls.
Bemis Brook drains a steep pocket on the east face of Mount Bemis and feeds the Saco River below the Notch. The flow over Arethusa is strongest in May during the snowmelt and again after heavy rain in late autumn. By August the column narrows to a single thread on the right side of the ledge. The stream carries iron from the granite watershed, which gives the pool below a faint amber cast in low light, and a thin spray that reaches the far rocks at higher water.
In winter the falls freeze into a vertical pillar that draws ice climbers from across northern New England. The Mount Washington Valley Ice Festival, held each February out of North Conway, routes parties to Arethusa as one of the region's classic moderate climbs. Snow on the trail typically holds from mid-November through early April; the New Hampshire Division of Parks does not maintain the route in winter and the approach requires microspikes or snowshoes. Yellow-birch leaf-off in mid-October opens the longest sight-line to the column.