I was anticipating a day filled with rain or at least off and on showers, and I got what I expected. The loop hike - Whitehouse to Flume Slide to Franconia Ridge to Liberty Spring - is generally a 'wet route' anyway, but with a few days of rain on it, it was like walking in a stream most of the day.
I got on trail at 08:10 at the start of the Whitehouse Trail. Blue-blazed to indicate that eventually (0.9) it would hook up to the Appalachian Trail.
It was raining lightly and would continue to do so most of the day. Rain doesn't bother me much when I'm expecting it, and the air temp hovered around 50 all day except for the (short amount of) time I spent on the summits where it dropped to about 35 or so.
Lots of stream crossings on this trip. And with all the recent rain, none of them could be crossed without getting the boots wet.
After 4.0 miles of fairly gentle terrain I arrived at the base of the Flume Slide. It wasn't long before the memories of just how difficult that 0.7 mile stretch can be. Most of this section allows for no 'safe place' to stand and pull out a camera. So these few pictures that follow were generally taken in places where I could find some respite before starting another steep run. Most of these may be a bit deceiving, but they are looking up at a steep angle...
This is looking out into Franconia Notch from the upper section of the Flume Slide Trail..
At 4.7 miles in I finally reached the ridgeline where the Franconia Ridge Trail begins. After turning around to face the top of the slide trail and tip my hat, I shot these pics at the trail junction...
From the junction its only 0.1 to the summit of Flume. As I came out of the trees just below the summit, I could see that I'd have no view today...
One wrong step here and its a 1500 foot ride of misery...
After such a difficult climb it felt great to raise a hail to the mountain gods!
Right after shooting that picture the winds kicked up and the rain got a bit heavier. So there was little opportunity to take many more pics on the ridge. 1.1 miles away at the summit of Liberty, it turned to freezing rain and my hands were going numb, so it was a quick 'tag' of the summit then I got below the trees. I was able to take this shot of the ramparts on Liberty from just below the summit (to give some perspective, the height of that section of rock is approximately 45')...
Just 0.3 down the ridge trail I arrived at the top of the Liberty Spring Trail (AT). From here it would be 3.7 miles - all downhill! Along the way I stopped for a few minutes to check out the Liberty Spring campsite area.
The actual "Liberty Spring"...
Some random shots from the hike down...
After nearly 8 hours on trail I arrived back at the trailhead. I didn't check, but I suspect that the 0.7 mile section on the slide, which is supposed to take 1:05 to climb probably took me at least 1:30, maybe even closer to 2:00.
A classic hike today. I felt exhausted, sore all over, but certainly accomplished. After today I will only need to climb Flume in the winter in order to complete it in all four seasons. And considering that winter means I'll climb it with crampons, I suspect it might be just a bit less freakish ;)
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Stats:
211 - successful summits
32/48 - NH spring peaks
33/67 - NE spring peaks
17/48 - NH May peaks
17/67 - NE May peaks
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