by Anura Guruge

Click pictures to ENLARGE.

All taken with my Fuji X-E2s.

Attribution WILL be enforced.

Wow. Wow. Wow. What a great place. Quite the adventure. Has to be New Hampshire’s most underrated tourist attraction (and that coming from a ‘Lifetime Member’ “Granite State Ambassador“). I, of course, must have seen signs to it given that it is “off Loon” — and we go to Loon (i.e., Lincoln) at least once a year (four times so far this year). It never registered as something real fun to do. I actually found it while checking out, online, the “Flume Gorge” — as a potential place to take Teischan (last Tuesday) while Deanna and Devanee went ‘back to school‘ shopping. The word that caught my interest was ‘CAVES’. Teischan just loves the “Polar Caves” — for nothing else but the caves. Since this was for Teischan I decided I will give “Lost River” a spin. And am I glad I did so.

Very impressed. Loved it. Has it all. Scenery, waterfalls, caves (with running water inside), bridges, hummingbirds, foliage, real oil lamps (and it is lovely to smell the oil inside the caves) flowers …

Reminded me of Acadia. Reminded Teischan of Yosemite (and to be fair it has quite a few similarities to the adjoining “Kings Canyon National Park” that we did visit during our trip to Yosemite in April). Very sylvan.

Different to “Polar Caves“. The main difference being that “Polar Caves”, in the main”, is a cliffside adventure while “Lost River” is all inside an immersive gorge — with the sight and sound of rushing water never far away. The caves are very different too. “Lost River” caves are deeper, HARDER TO NAVIGATE and has some lovely water features inside them. Teischan loved them — especially the fairly large waterfall.

You DEFINITELY have to crawl on your hands and KNEES, belly to the ground! My pants were filthy. Makes “Polar Caves” feel like a walk in a very open park. I couldn’t get past the ‘Go-NO Go’ Lemon Squeezer Gauge — though I didn’t try too hard to make it (given that at nearly 63 years of age I know my limitations). After that I gave the last 3 caves a miss. I had done enough crawling for the day.

Teischan loved it. Claims it is her new favorite.

This does NOT mean that you should not bother with “Polar Caves”. BUT, if due to time or budget you can ONLY do one then it should be “Lost River”. SMILE.

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by Anura Guruge