For most of two centuries, five granite ledges on the shoulder of Cannon Mountain resolved into a man's face — forty feet from brow to chin, twelve hundred feet above Profile Lake, visible from exactly one stretch of the notch. It was on the state quarter, the highway signs, and every third business logo in New Hampshire. On the morning of May 3, 2003, park staff looked up and it was gone: the ledges had let go sometime between midnight and two, after centuries of freeze and thaw finally won.
What is there now is Profile Plaza, on the lakeshore directly below the empty cliff — a walkway with seven steel 'profiler' sculptures, each calibrated for a different height. Find the one that fits you, put your eye where it says, and the silhouette snaps the face back onto the mountain. It is free, it takes 20 min, and watching strangers take turns becoming the Old Man's audience again is half the experience.
What the Old Man was
Not a carving — an accident of geology, first recorded by a survey crew in 1805 and made famous by Daniel Webster's line about God hanging out a sign that in New Hampshire He makes men, and by Hawthorne's story 'The Great Stone Face.' The profile only existed from the north, from the valley floor; from anywhere else it was just cliff.
By the twentieth century the state was fighting gravity on its behalf — turnbuckles, cables, epoxy, a maintenance program handed down through generations of the same family of caretakers. It bought decades. It could not buy forever.
The night it fell
No one saw it go. Fog filled the notch on May 2 and 3, 2003; when it lifted, the face had slid off the mountain onto the talus below. New Hampshire grieved it like a person — flowers piled in the notch, front pages statewide, a governor's press conference. That sounds excessive until you remember the profile was, literally, the state's face.
The debris is still there, on the slope below the cliff. Nobody rebuilt it, and the consensus was right: a fake Old Man would have been worse than none.
Profile Plaza today
The plaza was the answer instead. Dedicated in June 2011 and completed in stages through 2020, it sits at the water's edge with the profilers arranged along the walkway, granite paving stones engraved with donors' names, and interpretive panels telling the story. The effect of the steel silhouettes is simple and moving — the face reappears exactly where it hung.
A small seasonal museum by the parking area holds the relics: the turnbuckles, historic photographs, and the story of the family who maintained the profile. A path and a fishing platform on Profile Lake round out the stop. Allow 20 to 30 min; readers and photographers stay longer.
How to visit
The plaza is signed off the Franconia Notch Parkway at the Cannon Mountain / Profile Lake area, with parking a short flat walk from the lakeshore. Free, no ticket, open in daylight year-round; the museum is seasonal. Late afternoon light rakes across the cliff where the face used to be, which is the photographer's hour.
One note for planning: the Cannon Mountain aerial tramway beside the plaza is retired and closed for a multi-year replacement, so the ride-to-the-summit is off the menu for now. The memorial, the lake, and Echo Lake Beach a minute up the road are all unaffected.
Why it still matters here
More than twenty years on, the Old Man is still everywhere in New Hampshire — the road signs, the quarter in your change, the town seals. 'Live Free or Die' is the motto, but the Old Man was the face that said it. Locals still glance up at the empty ledge driving through the notch; the habit outlived the rock.
Bring someone who grew up in New England and watch them at the profiler. The plaza was built for exactly that moment, and it lands.
Where to stay for it
Profile Plaza is about 16 min north of the lodge in the notch, and it slots into any notch day — we usually send guests Basin first, plaza second, Echo Lake last, so the corridor builds from water to story to swim.
Sources & official info: nhpr.org · newengland.com · nhstateparks.org
— Launchpoint Lodge, From the lodge
