The leaves in Franconia Notch had peaked before thousands of visitors packed parking lots at the Flume Gorge and made their way up hiking trails over the holiday weekend. But that didn’t seem to bother some.

Satish Kasarapu came from Boston to hike Artist’s Bluff Trail because he’d heard about the panoramic view. The summit delivered, he said.

“New Hampshire, the people are so blessed,” Kasarapu said as he came off the trail with friends. “They have good mountains and…natural kinds of views. Boston, we have a concrete jungle.”

It was images on Instagram that drew Kavya Mattam, a high school chemistry teacher in Connecticut, to the trail. It’s no wonder. There were more than 19,000 images and reels on Instagram Monday, some with more than a half-million views.

“It's so close [to] Connec

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