http://indepthnh.org/2021/08/22/whi...-closures-in-advance-of-tropical-storm-henri/
I recognize most of the areas that they closed and expect that most are related to cars getting stranded due to washouts. The interesting one was closing Lincoln Woods trail to Franconia Falls and East Side Trail. Both of these are not vehicle roads and are for non motorized travel unlike all the other closures. Franconia Falls at high water can be impressive as well as the main channel of the East Branch. While hiking last fall a friend and I ran into a USFS employee quite familiar with the FS activities going on in the Pemi area and she had mentioned that the FS were planning to bring in an engineering crew this summer (2021) to survey the eroded section of the Lincoln Woods trail to plan for future repairs. My guess is that the closure is related to concerns about that eroded location as any significant storm event could scour what is left of the trail down to the underlying bedrock which would, judging by appearances of the exposed ledge on the north side of the trail, leave a near vertical ledge where the trail once existed. When it does erode out the remaining trail could be seriously undermined as what is under there appears to be just a bed of gravel.
There are alternatives for hikers to bypass by just bushwhacking up slope and paralleling the washout. The logical approach would be to mark and rough out this route sooner than later as barring major rework of the river channel and hundreds of tons of stone rip rapping or building a bridge tied to the underlying ledge over this section, its going to wash out sooner than later. One good spring storm with the right debris flow in the river and it becomes a crisis. I think the FS has avoided a relo to date as this is very popular family friendly trail and rerouting it upslope while maintaining a gentle grade would require a fairly major relocation to the level that was done on the west end of East Side trail post Irene.
I recognize most of the areas that they closed and expect that most are related to cars getting stranded due to washouts. The interesting one was closing Lincoln Woods trail to Franconia Falls and East Side Trail. Both of these are not vehicle roads and are for non motorized travel unlike all the other closures. Franconia Falls at high water can be impressive as well as the main channel of the East Branch. While hiking last fall a friend and I ran into a USFS employee quite familiar with the FS activities going on in the Pemi area and she had mentioned that the FS were planning to bring in an engineering crew this summer (2021) to survey the eroded section of the Lincoln Woods trail to plan for future repairs. My guess is that the closure is related to concerns about that eroded location as any significant storm event could scour what is left of the trail down to the underlying bedrock which would, judging by appearances of the exposed ledge on the north side of the trail, leave a near vertical ledge where the trail once existed. When it does erode out the remaining trail could be seriously undermined as what is under there appears to be just a bed of gravel.
There are alternatives for hikers to bypass by just bushwhacking up slope and paralleling the washout. The logical approach would be to mark and rough out this route sooner than later as barring major rework of the river channel and hundreds of tons of stone rip rapping or building a bridge tied to the underlying ledge over this section, its going to wash out sooner than later. One good spring storm with the right debris flow in the river and it becomes a crisis. I think the FS has avoided a relo to date as this is very popular family friendly trail and rerouting it upslope while maintaining a gentle grade would require a fairly major relocation to the level that was done on the west end of East Side trail post Irene.