While Tom and I were in Franconia Notch we stayed at Cannon Campground. As I mentioned yesterday, in the Grand Canyon of New Hampshire post, there are two campgrounds in the state park. Lafayette Campground has lots of sites, but Tom and I never would have fit in any of them and there were no hookups. While we can do electric-only for a while, we really appreciate having water and sewer hookups also. Fortunately Franconia Notch has another campground, the Cannon Mountain RV Campground.
This little campground only has seven spots but they are all full hookup. This proved really useful because we are camping with friends who didn’t have a shower and there wasn’t a shower house at the campground. Consequently six people ended up using our shower every day in addition to washing lots of dishes. It was really nice to have the full hookups so Tom could dump whenever needed.
The Cannon Campground is located between Echo Lake and the parking lot for Echo Lake. The view wasn’t great out the one end of the RV, but the sites were certainly easy in and easy out. And, because there were so few people at the campground, it was extremely quiet – at least until the birds started singing at 4 a.m. every morning! We had full access to Echo lake and there was a small campstore at the lake that was open from 10 until 5 every day.
The Cannon Campground turned out to be a great place for us to stay because it was close to all the hiking trails, next to Cannon Mountain, and next to the Recreation (Bike) Trail. It was too cold to be in the water much, but we could also rent canoes, kayaks, and paddleboats at Echo Lake. Everything in Franconia Notch was within easy driving distance so we didn’t spend hours in the car every day seeing the sights.
We loved staying at Cannon Campground and would certainly recommend it to anyone with an RV. Be sure you reserve a site early, however, because they fill up fast year-round. You can reserve up to eleven months ahead of time. People stay here for hiking in the summer, leaf-looking in the fall, and skiing in the winter, so it is busy no matter what time of year you visit.