August 7, 2010
I originally had a 29 mile hike planned for today. When I heard Jeremy was hiking some of the same peaks, I saw an opportunity to shorten the day by a little more than 7 miles. I started at 6:00 and planned to meet Jeremy on Garfield at noon. This meant I needed to climb five 4000 footers in six hours. Yikes! I probably should have given myself more time.
Just before I reached the junction with the Flume Slide Trail I saw these erosion/mud control boxes (or whatever you call them). These were new since the last time I was here.
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I headed up the Flume Slide Trail. It was only my 2nd time on the trail.
Junction with the Franconia Ridge Trail and Osseo Trail.
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Almost on Flume
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Next up, Mount Liberty
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After Liberty, I was on to Mount Lincoln
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Looking back to Flume and Liberty
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Cannon Mountain
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Before reaching Lincoln, I had to go over a subpeak, Little Haystack
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On to Lincoln
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I've had some great hikes across Franconia Ridge but today topped them all.
The weather was absolutely perfect.
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Looking back to Little Haystack
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On to Mount Lafayette
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Looking back to Lincoln
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After Lafayette, I continued down to Garfield Ridge.
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There's Garfield. Hopefully I can get there by noon.
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Back in the woods
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The section between the Skookumchuck Trail and Mount Garfield is rugged and always seems to drag. It was close, but I managed to get to the summit of Garfield right at noon. I found Jeremy relaxing on the ledges.
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Looking back to Franconia Ridge
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Jeremy and I now had three peaks that we were going to do together.
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I had hiked the Garfield Ridge peaks about 2 months ago. They require short bushwhacks. I had no intention of ever returning, but I did not find the cannister when I was on the East Peak. Jeremy told me he hated to be the bearer of bad news, but that there was a cannister there. He later admitted that if he really did hate to be the bearer of bad news, he wouldn't have told me. I think he enjoyed telling me, knowing I would be determined to go back to find the cannister.
First we hit Garfield Ridge West Peak. This cannister (or jar) was easy enough to find.
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We actually had a couple decent views while on the peak. Not at all like earlier in the day on Franconia Ridge, but very nice for a bushwhack peak that is.
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Garfield Ridge East Peak was a very short bushwhack of just a few minutes.
We found the ledges easy enough with a view back to Garfield.
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We both were in search of the cannister. We had all but given up. We went back out to the ledges where Jeremy spotted it.
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FYI - For anyone looking for this cannister go to the highest rock on the ledges. There is no need to go back into the woods. The spot that I "declared" the highpoint on my last trip was a rock in the woods about 25 feet away.
Next up was Galehead.
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Jeremy, the doorman, at Galehead Hut.
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We headed down the Gale River Trail. Jeremy then gave me a ride back to my car. Thanks Jeremy. This marked the last time that both Jeremy and I needed to visit Garfield and Galehead for the Grid.
Grid peaks to go: 33.
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