Continue on the bike path for 1.6 miles until you come to the bushwack on the left.
Mount flume plus#
Plus the day was beautiful, even in the early morning when the air was just a little chilly you could already tell this was going to be a short sleeve hiking day.įeeling slightly silly for being the only ones not going up the trailhead (towards Lafayette) that was only feet from where we parked, we trudged off down the Franconia Notch Bike Path, under the overpass and through the Lafayette Place Campground parking lot. But we were in an extremely popular area, not just for hiking, but for all White Mountain visitors, so we were prepared to see a lot of people on the trails.
Mount flume full#
We’ve arrived to full lots before, but rarely do we see other hikers so early in the morning. The sun was barely up yet, but already the lot was packed and hikers were gearing up for their day. We pulled into the trailhead parking lot just after 6AM. Early morning trailhead parking lot by Falling Water Trail At least, learned to start with the horrible part in the morning while we’re still full of hope and promise, rather than wait until the end of the day when we want to die. Osceola and East Osceola where we decided to take the long way resulting in a 2.7 mile trek back up the road, we learned our lesson. After the slight lapse in judgement at the very end of our first ever hike – Mt. Normally, we avoid pavement hiking as much as possible. This meant that we first had an over 2.0 mile walk on the Franconia Notch Bike Path to where we would actually begin hiking on the Liberty Spring Trail. North I-93 (near Basin) Parking Lot to Franconia Notch Bike Pathīecause we had planned to hike all four peaks in the ridge we decided to start our hike where we would finish at the end of the day – in the trailhead parking lot off North I-93 where most people start Mt. However, a few minutes on Liberty Spring Trail and we quickly realized our start-of-the-season legs were not going to carry us nearly 15 miles on some of the toughest trails in the Whites. We ambitiously thought we would try this for our first hike of the season. To hike all four peaks (Liberty, Flume, Lafayette, and Lincoln) starting from the Liberty Spring Trail, over the Franconia Ridge Trail, and down Greenleaf Trail to Old Bridle Path is 14.7 miles. Parts of the ridge line also connect with the Appalachian Trail. Liberty is #18 on the NH4K list and Flume is not far behind at #25 (4,328 feet). This ridgeline makes peak-bagging all or some of the nearby 4Ks popular hikes. This is the second highest ridge line after the Presidential range and contains five 4,000 footers overall (Lafayette, Lincoln, and Garfield being the other three). Flume are two of six peaks in the Franconia Ridge. I thought about that woman a lot during our 8 hour grind. And my hiking team promptly put Liberty and Flume to the backs of our minds and pretended it didn’t exist until now.
The daughter didn’t make it the last few 10ths of a mile to the top of Flume because of how physically spent she was. But they also told us about a winter hike they did up Liberty and Flume. They were the ones that also got us interested in winter hiking, telling us how much better it was because you can walk on the snow over top of the rocks.
We first heard about some of the peaks in the Ridge from a father-daughter hiking team on Tecumseh, our seventh hike. The Franconia Ridge was top on our do not hike list. That was some awesome planning on our part. What does that mean we have left – all the hard hikes and exposed peaks. So we’ve miraculously managed to avoid all of them until now. When you’re standing on a tiny plinth of rock in a space no bigger than a broom closet with 10+ strangers, you notice it. To be fair all 4,000 footers are high, but when you are in a shrouded tree-lined summit, you don’t really notice it. These peaks have some things in common: 1) they’re tough climbs, over 1,000 feet or more of elevation gain each, 2) they are exposed, meaning we have to plan our weather days carefully, 3) they are high. There are certain peaks we’ve, to put it bluntly, completely avoided. But I think all of us knew as we approached our 2021 season – we were starting with the Franconia Ridge. It feels like ages since we’ve hiked and what a perfect day to kick off our season and year five of hiking the Whites! Sometimes it takes us a long time to figure out what our hike will be for our chosen day, sometimes we disagree, sometimes we come to our choice unanimously. Sweat-drenched, quads screaming, toes in agony as they’re crushed to the front of my hiking boots…ah it’s hiking season again and I couldn’t be happier.
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