Popular Franconia Loop is a wonderful hike. Most do it in summer up Falling Waters and down Old Bridal Path. We decided to kick it up a notch, add Flume and Liberty by climbing up the steep Flume Slide.
What a beautiful morning, high thin clouds streaked against pure blue. I parked at the Flume visitor center right where the Whitehorse multi-use (Bike) path enters the woods. Anne, Julie, Evan and I headed off, most of us lightly packed. I would be "Sherpa" for Anne as she'd been under the weather and had slept very little.
From the paved bike path we diverged right onto the Liberty Springs trail which moderately wound it's way up the side of a ridge. Quickly we picked up the Flume Slide Trail, a nice walk in the woods. You gain some elevation but it's barely noticable. The Hobblebush are creeping in, the path could use a little "brushing back."
Then the trail began to climb a little more with rocks replacing dirt and roots for footing. Pretty soon it started to GET STEEP! Julie had mentioned a slight fear of heights, I remembered one spot being pretty bad but mostly it was just a walk-up. The key to Flume slide is that it be a dry day.
Going up that slide is tiring, no question about it. You just take it slow. The sign had said .8 from the bottom of the slide to where it joins with the Osseo trail. It seemed much longer. Julie was doing great, she paused only once at that spot I remembered. Then she was off and up-up-up. Anne and I were breathing hard but we took no breaks. Evan seemed to be doing great.
After fighting the slide for an hour or so we joined the Osseo trail, then it was a short rise to the summit of Mt Flume (4,328)
We didn't pause at all, a little too early to eat lunch they said. So off we went, North for Liberty. Mt Liberty is higher than Mt Flume and you lose some elevation going into the col between the peaks. My first time here had been an out and back on Liberty Springs. My niece Jessica and friend Scott sat here playing a game of cards while I went off to bag Flume.
The climb out of the col to Liberty is pretty long and I always get tired here. We also hadn't eaten very much so a snack helped push us up to the beautiful summit of Mt Liberty at 4,459'. We took our lunch up there, saw a few other hikers but it wasn't too crowded. I pointed out the Flume visitor center where we started.
Lunch was great, just simple food but even a PBJ tastes great up here. We soaked up the sunshine and enjoyed our first real rest of the day.
The climb down starts out steep but moderates, soon we were at the jct of the Liberty springs trail, I told them this was the quickest way down. On we went, the trail is beautiful through here, it descends into the woods but you can see openings to the left and right. You're truly on the top of a ridge. By the time we dropped down all the way to the col I knew we had a good long climb up to Haystack.
It was getting hot, the trail opened up somewhat and the sunshine poured down on us. Sweat fell and splattered against the rocky trail. It was a mean uphill march. Anne said she was tired, this was probably too much after being sick. But she moved on, you just plug along slowly. It climbed for a good long while, never steep but never flat either.
Then the views really opened up, we sat and had a small snack
This is the place where in October of 2000 Anne and her friend Chris came across a hiker who'd collapsed. She's a diabetes educator and saw what looked like the signs of diabetic shock. Sure enough, he was a diabetic and had come across Franconia ridge up Old Bridal path.
While Anne's friend ran down the Falling Waters trail to get help, Anne administered aid on the spot. The fed the man some Gu-gel which is almost pure sugar and enlisted the help of other hikers passing through. She was able to use the cellphone of the man's wife and make a call to Dartmouth Hitchcock hospital
After some coaxing they promised to send a helicopter. They had no idea how or where they could land a helicopter on top of a mountain. The chopper came and with the help of others they carried him to a clearing just off the summit where it landed. Wayne received treatment and survived to hike another day.
There were tons of people lounging around. Anne showed us the spot where the helicopter landed. We sat and lounged on some flat rocks a little away from the crowds. We could see the summit of Lincoln which didn't look too far away. About 30 people were on the summit of that.
After a short break we were off again. The trail was well marked with big cairns and rocks even lined the sides of the path to keep people off the alpine plants. There are few places in the US with terrain like this. It's tundra. A few wild blueberries were still ripe, Anne and Julie took advantage.
With Evan leading and me just behind, we wound our way up to Mt Lincoln. It's a great trail, not too steep. Scrambling to the top I looked back and took a picture of
Julie as she made it to the summit.
Anne was the last of the group, she looked tired but happy. We relaxed for a few minutes on the 5,000+ foot pile of rocks.
We looked back to see all we'd done. Mt Lafayette now stood clear, it was crawling with people. Getting up from my prone position was harder this time, I was pretty tired too. Down-down we went, but not that far and not that steep. The section between Lafayette and Lincoln is really nice.
We passed folks coming and going, these paths are busy! Franconia loop is one of the most popular hikes in the east. It didn't seem like a ton of elevation gain and it didn't take us too long. At around 4pm we were on the summit of mile high Mt Lafayette.
We found a spot to sit although it wasn't easy. I bet close to a hundred people were on Lafayette that Saturday afternoon. It was late summer and I suppose people were soaking it all in before Autumn and winter arrive.
The foundation of a building was a good spot to sit or lie. We didn't want to wait too long though, a long hike down OBP and then the Whitehorse awaited us. We took the Greenleaf trail down to the hut. It always seems to take a long time. Julie and Evan were waiting for us there inside the hut. Anne was really tired so we took a long break, re-filled water bottles and ate a last snack.
The hut was really crowded, not a place I'd want to spend the night. I was there overnight in June of 1994, only 8 people stayed there that night, it was nice eating a hot supper while a thunderstorm pounded the ridges above us,
"It's all downhill from here." I assured Anne. OBP is very rocky and goes steeply down Agony ridge. It's a painful section, you have to take it slow and the knees which had already taken a pounding were complaining.
3 miles from the hut to the road doesn't seem like much when you're walking along but it is. We were down at around 6:30 then faced a long Whitehorse paved trail. I thought the path went from the end of the parking lot but the map proved me wrong. We had to cross under I-93 then we passed a State camping ground near where the Lonesome Lake trail begins. It was brutal to walk through and smell cooking food and charcoal.
I checked my compass to make sure we were heading south. From the map it only looked like 2 miles or so. Well, it was 2 miles to the basin and then from there another 2 miles to the Flume parking lot. OOOOOOOPS! I hitched a ride with a nice family at the Basin parking lot and soon met up with my bedraggled group at the Basin.
What a day we'd had, 4-official-4,000 footers, we counted Haystack also at 5 peaks in a day. Something like 16 miles of walking at 11 hours! 5,100 feet of elevation gain.