Distance: 36 mi.
Elevation Gain: 13,400 ft.

While Craig was busy climbing in the Olympics, I was on the other side of the country on a peak bagging spree in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I had spent time here during my Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike in 2013 and was eager to return. My friend Nancy and I realized that we had a similar chunk of time off in late May, and I figured that conditions would be pretty good in the northeast. Turns out there was more snow (but less bugs!) than I had anticipated, but we got a pretty good weather window.

Saturday we drove to Franconia Notch to look for a parking spot – no easy feat on a nice day over Memorial Day weekend, but we managed to find something near Lafayette Campground. From here we walked along a bike path until we reached the Liberty Springs trailhead. There was one kinda tricky stream crossing early on, but we were able to keep our feet dry. The climb up to Liberty Springs campground ($10 PP) was pretty grueling on a warm day. Us weak Washingtonians are used to switchbacks and no humidity. But we made it to camp by about 3 PM and quickly set up camp. It was a busy weekend so we shared a tent platform with two other hikers and their dogs; it was a tight fit but allowed our tent to stay a little drier overnight because they had tarps. After establishing camp, Nancy and I headed up to the ridge to climb Liberty and Flume at about 4:15. We encountered our first major patches of snow on the north ridge of Liberty so we put on our microspikes and gaiters. The snow was patchy but steep and slippery, so we were quite glad to have spikes. We reached the summit of Liberty, which was dry, at 4:45 PM.

From there we dropped down to the southeast to follow the trail to Mount Flume, which was mostly snowy and slightly overgrown. The skies began to darken so we didn’t linger after reaching Mount Flume at 5:30, and partially jogged back to camp. We got back to camp at 6:45. We were both feeling queasy after the sweaty afternoon ascent so we skipped dinner. Just as we went to bed, it began to rain… hard. It rained all night but we managed to stay mostly dry in our floppily set up tent (can’t stake out on a tent platform!)

The next morning we left at 8 AM and retraced our steps to the ridge above, this time turning left (north) toward Mount Lafayette. There was patchy snow and a few downed trees until we reached treeline, and then the trail was completely dry. When we reached Little Haystack at 9:45 we found a sunny spot out of the wind and dried out all our gear from the night before. We had wonderful weather on Franconia Ridge and enjoyed the views of rolling green and blue hills all around us. We reached Lafayette at 11:45.

Just as the weather got foggy and windy, we were making our way back down below treeline. We dropped our packs to run up the side trail to Mount Garfield at 3 PM, then made our way to the Garfield Ridge Shelter at 4 PM ($10 PP). We put on spikes for a couple icy sections of the descent. I had stayed at this shelter in 2013 and planted a tree for a work-for-stay, so I was stoked to visit my little tree again! It might have survived?? Maybe?

The next morning we got up early for our longest day, but ended up chatting with a fellow hiker, John, over breakfast for quite some time. We got hiking around 7:45 AM. Going east down the Garfield Ridge Trail (Appalachian Trail) from Garfield Ridge Shelter, the trail was an actual stream that was flowing pretty furiously over large boulders, so we watched our steps carefully through here.

We reached Galehead Hut at 10:15 AM and relaxed there for a bit before continuing on to South Twin. We had meant to climb Galehead Mountain but totally forgot, whoops! We made up for it by taking the side trip over to North Twin, which was pretty slow going due to jumbo puddles and a fair amount of snow.

We reached North Twin at 12:45, then returned to South Twin and then continued southeast on the AT toward Mount Guyot, which we evidently summited without realizing it. We had heard that the trail between South Twin and Guyot was a poopshow, and boy did it deliver. There were still 3 or 4 feet of snow in this forested section, but almost all of it was undermined, creating a continuous snow cave that an unsuspecting hiker could punch through at any moment. Nancy and I both had numerous postholes, many into free air beneath the snow. Needless to say, our feet were soaked.

We ran up the Mount Zealand side trail at 4 PM and then made a speedy descent on dry ground toward Zealand Falls Hut. The water crossing at Whitewall Brook looked super sketchy with very brisk water, but the trail crossed at a shallow point and we made it across without much trouble.

We warmed up in the shelter for a few minutes and filled up on water before summoning the courage to continue on to Ethan Pond. It was already 6:30 PM and we still had 5 miles to go, but on fairly flat trail. We made good time at first, but then slowed down on several muddy, rock hoppy sections. Considering we were at 2,800 ft, we were pretty surprised (and a little angry) when we found snow as we reached the Ethan Pond campsite at dusk. Luckily the tent pads were melted out, and the pond was gorgeous at this time of day.

We decided to sleep in the next morning because we had a relatively short day ahead. We were planning to cross Crawford Notch and continue to Nauman Camp. We followed east along the AT until we reached the Willey Range Trail, where we turned left (north) at 10:45 AM. The climb up to Willey was pretty bananas with numerous ladders, luckily all of which were melted out.

About halfway up the climb it began to rain lightly on us, but we weren’t too bothered by it. By the 3/4 point, it was raining hard enough to put on our rain jackets. We met one other party heading in the opposite direction and I asked if they had cell service at the trailhead? No. Also, was there some sort of visitor center down there? Nope.

By the time we reached the summit of Mount Willey, the skies were delivering lots of wet snow. Our hands started getting really cold, so we stopped under a tree to layer up. There was a lot of slippery snow on the ridge so we put on microspikes also. By the time we reached Mount Field, our pants, feet, and gloves were completely soaked and our rain jackets and packs were beginning to soak through. I thought that we ought not to spend any more time soaking wet at near-freezing temperatures than absolutely necessary, so we decided to forgo Mount Tom and headed directly down the Avalon Trail. In a last ditch effort to prove our insanity, we did drop our packs and run up Mount Avalon, under the guise of “warming up”. This easily was one of my top 5 most miserable hikes ever 🙁

We reached Crawford Notch with soggy bodies and spirits, and no cell phone reception to help extricate ourselves from the situation. But then we saw Highland Center in the distance, not understanding what it was. A mirage? We walked inside the lodge and two very nice young men at the reception desk encouraged us to “make ourselves at home”. They helped us charge our phones, call a local hostel, and even found us a ride back to our car (we were planning to use the AMC Hiker Shuttle two days later, but it wasn’t running yet). We also bought some snacks from the small shop inside and turned our frowns upside down. Rather than backpacking the next two days as we had planned, we did several small day hikes, then ended our trip by eating piles of lobster and oysters in Portland, Maine. No regrets!!!

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Recommended brew: Smuttynose Old Dog Brown Ale

Gear Used:

• Backpacking tent
• Bear line (brought but not used – all sites had bear boxes)
• Gaiters
• GPS
• Hiking boots (Nancy)
• Microspikes
• Sleeping pad
• Summer sleeping bag
• Stove
• Trail runners (Vanessa)
• Trekking poles
• Water filter

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