My friend, Maria, is intent on hiking up all of the 4,000 footers in the White Mountains, and so when I asked her if she'd be interested in hiking the Franconia Ridge Loop, she was very interested. The Franconia Ridge Loop trail is a 8.9 mile hike that traverses Little Haystack Mountain (4,780 ft), Mt Lincoln (5,089 ft), and Mt Lafayette (5,240 ft). The cumulative gain is over 3,900 feet with over 1/3rd of the route being above treeline. In simple people speak: pretty awesome, although for whatever technical reason, only two of the peaks (Lincoln & Lafayette) count as 4,000 footers.
We set off before 7 from home as we had about 100 miles to go, and I think we arrived (making a couple of stops) around 9ish. We stopped at the information center a few miles from where we would start our hike (the Lafayette Campground Parking Lot) and were assured that the weather would probably not be a problem.
The hike starts off quite gradually and w/n moments, we arrived at the first of the cascading water falls. There were several more to follow as we hiked up, it was very pretty...plenty of photo ops!
After a couple of miles, the trails got rather steeps and more rugged. I'd done it back in 2008 and I had not thought of the hike as especially challenging. But then, that was probably because I'd just completed the Presidential Traverse in 12 hours, a much longer and grueling hike! This, however, was my first hike of the year, and I thought that it was quite steep and that all of the rocks made it that much harder! But we persevered, arriving at the ridge two hours or less into the hike. We had only made one brief stop along the way, intending for it to be longer, but then it started to rain.
The rain continued as we hiked, and once we arrived at the start of the ridge, we heard thunder, not a good sign. I'd read that if the weather conditions were not good, that you should turn back as you're very exposed at this time, you're above the tree line, and there is no cover. But by that time, we'd met another couple, and after a short discussion as to what we should do, the group voted to continue on, I was the only dissenting voice, and I certainly was not going to hike 3 miles back to the car by myself!
It got quite nasty as we made our way across the ridge...we were able to see dark clouds moving swiftly across the mountains until they were directly above us...it was intermittent rain, followed by clearing clouds in which we were able to get magnficent views...and we even experienced some hail!
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| I believe this is the top of Lafayette....see me clutching on to my friend! |
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| Having arrived at the peak of Mt. Lafayette, we've completed the ridge, and we're looking down at the Greenleaf AMC Hut which will be our destination for a long overdue lunch break. |
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| For a short time, the clouds have disappeared and we treated to magnificent views. |
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| but then, just as we are ready to make our descent, the clouds reappear.... |
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| and it rains the entire time of our descent!!! |
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| Here we are, totally soaked!! Note to self, I need a better jacket!!! I love my new hiking boots, however! Gore tex! Even after trudging through several puddles, my feet are completely dry...and they're so so comfortable, well worth the investment! Thank you LL Bean! |
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| It's beautiful down below, has it been like this all day? |
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| I remembered that I had two bags of clothing that I planned to donate to Goodwill in my trunk, and so I'm all too happy to shed my wet clothes and put some dry clothing on. Maria's brought the beer and we toast to our accomplishment! |
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