December 15, 2007
Today I had another AMC hike headed up by Ed Hawkins and Dave Langley. Our group of 9 met at 8:00. Besides Ed, Dave , and myself, we had Becca who I've hiked with many times before and Alex who I've hiked with once. We also had four hikers who I've never hiked with: Victoria, Bruce, Peter, and Jim.
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Here's today's track.
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We began the hike with Becca in the lead as we headed down part of the bike path that leads all the way through Franconia Notch. We were passed by some snowmobilers, who instantly packed down the trail for us. As we reached the junction just before Whitehouse Bridge, we found the trail was already broken out. Ed referred to this as a gift. We had a storm a few days ago, and there is a big storm coming tonight, so we hit this just right. We headed up the Liberty Spring Trail which is also the Appalachian Trail. A little more than a half a mile later, we came to the junction with the Flume Slide Trail, but continued on the current trail.
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Ed was right. This broken out trail was a gift.
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Peter is a former chairman for the Maine chapter of the AMC. On the way up, Dave asked, "Peter, do you still have some pull with the AMC?"
"I sure do! I could have you taken out in a minute," he joked (at least I thing he was joking).
We continued the steep, steady climb up to Franconia Ridge.
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Just another 3 tenths to the summit of Liberty
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Bruce with Alex behind him.
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There's the 4459' summit.
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A couple minutes later I was on the summit of Liberty for the 3rd time.
Here's the view north to Mount Lincoln.
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Looking northwest to Cannon Mountain.
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Looking to the northeast across the Pemigewassett Wilderness.
Mount Washington is all the way in the back.
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Becca reaches the summit.
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Looking ahead to Mount Flume, our next target.
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We dropped down into the col and headed up to Flume which is 1.2 miles from Liberty. It was my 2nd time on the 4328' summit of Flume. Here's the view back to Liberty.
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Dave tried to take my picture, but with the weather in the single digits the batteries stopped working because of the cold. At least that's my story, it very well could be that my looks broke the camera. I apologize for not getting a picture of everyone today. With the trail already broken out, we never went into a rolling lead. With a rolling lead everyone takes a turn at the front breaking trail. This gives me opportunites to get a picture of everyone, but not today. We returned over the same route. During the last couple miles, Ed stopped several times.
Dave was in the back and yelled, "Why do we keep stopping?"
"Because, Bruce asked me a question."
"Bruce, stop asking Ed questions," everyone yelled in unison.
A while later, Ed stopped again.
"Bruce, did you ask Ed another question?"
"Not this time. It's not my fault."
Ed had a shortcut for us. We took a short bushwhack with Dave in the lead. This saved us about half of a mile.
A while later we were back at the parking. I forgot to check the time, but it was probably around 4:00.
This makes 20 of the White Mountain 4000 footers that I've done with Ed. That's quite a few since we only met 9 months ago. "When I first met you," Ed commented, "I knew you were out of control." Coming from someone who I've nicknamed Mr. 4000, this was a big compliment. Well time to get home, there's a big snowstorm that's going to hit tonight. Just one more week 'til winter begins.
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