About 150 miles north of Boston, in the western White Mountains, Franconia is a small town of about 1,000 people. For nearly two centuries the community has been taking in travelers headed for the majesty of Franconia Notch State Park and Mount Lafayette and Cannon Mountain.
Franconia is quiet in winter. The Frost Place, the poet's home-turned-museum, is closed for the season as are warmer-weather favorites like Polly's Pancake Parlor, next door in Sugar Hill.
The state park, the final resting place of the Old Man of the Mountain, is prime territory for this season's activities. Though the Flume is closed, skiers and snowboarders have the slopes of Cannon Mountain, while ice climbers head for Cannon Cliffs. Below the dangling ice, the bike path is transformed into a snowmobile corridor. Snowshoers and winter hikers trek to frozen Lonesome Lake.
Though the Old Man is no more, Franconia has another famous face: Bode Miller, the Olympic double silver medalist who made World Cup history in November by becoming the first skier to win the first three races in a World Cup season. He has rock-star status in Europe, where skiing is king of winter sports, but back in Franconia he's just Bode (BO-dee), and in summer he teaches tennis at the Tamarack Camps.
Cannon is a big mountain, at least by New Hampshire standards, and it's where Miller got his ski legs barreling down trails such as the Front Five: Gary's, Rocket, Zoomer, Paulie's Folly, and Avalanche. Cannon has history. It has the first ski-racing trail cut in North America, the Taft Slalom of 1933. In 1938, North America's first aerial tramway, replaced by another in 1980, shuttled skiers up the mountain. Plans call for a three-phase project, starting in the spring, to rebuild the north side of the summit's lift stop and mountain station.
