Flume, Liberty, Lincoln & Lafayette 8/24/13

This was to be the biggest hike of the year for me over 15 miles and the first 5,000 foot peak and three 4,000 foot "48 official" peaks.  We left the Hudson park and ride and 4:00 and reached the Falling Waters parking lot at 6:30.  The temperature in my car read 42 degrees and when we got out of the car we found out it was pretty accurate.  Luckily I brought my winter hat and wore a cotton layer on the way up.  While getting out gear ready, I dropped my camera on the pavement which rendered it useless and Kyle's Osprey hydration bladder cracked open right at the handle.  Luckily Kyle had his iPhone to take plenty of pictures for this blog and had a gallon of water to carry.  Once we got everything in order, we started on the bike path to Liberty Springs trail at 6:45.  We had no luck finding the ascending Basin Bushwack I asked about on a HikeNH forum, but it was clearly visible at a big corner on Liberty Springs.  We took the Flume Slide Trail off of Liberty Springs and it felt like it took forever to get to the slide portion of the trail.  The trail couldn't have been any drier and the first views of the day looking back from the trail was awesome.  But I felt that the slide was steeper than the Tripyramid North Slide at times and stopping to look back gave me a little vertigo.

Mt. Flume was awesome.  We had to follow huge rock outcrops to the actual peak of the mountain.  On the top of Flume, we met an extraordinary couple.  Mike was a mountaineer who organized hikes to Kilamajaro, Everest, Macho Picchu and the money generated from those hikes went to his wife Lilas orphanage.  Their website is http://www.flyingkites.org.  The hike to Liberty looked to be an imposing up and down but it definitely was easier and quicker than it looked.  On the top of Liberty there was a large group of younger hikers with hand tools, hard hats and safety glasses who were heading to do some trail maintenance somewhere.

The ridge trail between Liberty and Lincoln was very quiet and Kyle and I split up for a while. It was so quiet if felt like I was wearing earmuffs.  I found a piece of black "fur" on a portion of the trail and thought it was bear fur and held on to it to show Kayla when I got home.  It's the fur from Mordu!  A few minutes later on the trail Kyle and I stopped to check out some fresh bear scat.  The bear scar, chunk of fur and deafness of the trail made us a little uneasy and actually slowed down our pace as we employed our bear defense techniques.  As I clapped and Kyle yelled "Yo Bear!" the silence of that portion of the trail quickly changed when we reached Mt. Lincoln.  There were so many people on top of the mountain, but they were all in the background because the views were awesome.  Some of the people that went up the mountain seemed so out of place and probably were dreading the way down.

We must have thought Little Haystack was Mt. Lafayette because when we finally got to the top of Little Haystack and looked to the north, the trail to Lafayette gave us a big reality slap.   There was one last climb left to the top of Lafayette but that was only before another big drop off.  We hung out on top of Lafayette for a while and Kyle cooked up some inedible Mountain House Jerk Chicken.

The way down Lafayette on the Old Bridle Path was pretty fast going unless someone was in our way. Usually when someone was in our way, it seemed that they didn't want to move out of the way.  According to a couple of hikers, I almost got taken out by some girl that was running down the mountain.  All I heard the scree scraping under her shoes behind me.  It was a great day despite my new Vasques (~45 miles) ripping open at the toe as we finished at 3:30.  Approximately 15 miles in 8:45 minutes including several breaks on the peaks.  Great leg and cardio workout but it took a toll on my back which kept me from going back on the peaks the next week.

Mt. Tripyramid 8/10/13

Mt. Tripyramid is a loop hike of 11 miles over three 4,000 foot mountains.  North Tripyramid and Middle Tripyramid each qualify for the list of 48 in the Waterville Valley area.  The AMC book time for this hike is 7 hours.  I had done this hike in the past and knew that the highlight of the hike was the North Slide Trail for the challenging climb and mountain views.

I met up with Kyle at the park and ride in Hudson for 5:00 and we arrived at the Livermore Road trail head parking area just past 7:00.  When we got there, a group of AMC hikers and a couple other hikers were already taking off for the trail.  Once we prepped our packs, we were off and hit the trail at about 7:20.  As we headed up Livermore Road there were side trails to "The Big Pines", "The Kettles" and "Norway Rapids" which we decided to hit on the way down. I was expecting the road to be boring, but trying to catch and eventually passing the AMC group made it interesting and at 8:35 we hit the trail junction for the North Slide Trail. 3.6 miles in 1:15 minutes with an elevation gain of 1,200 feet!

The beginning of the North Slide trail was wooded, overgrown and very wet because it had down poured the day before.  When we hit the actual North slide, the granite slabs were still wet and the lichen growing on them made for some very slick footing.  We both had to grab handholds in the slabs or use trees to pull ourselves up and maneuver through this part of the trail.  We climbed following different routes and both found ourselves in tricky spots to get by and either had to take a giant step up, sidestep or drop down a couple of steps and reroute.  When we got past the wet area, the trail opened up and we felt the 40 mph wind gusts predicted by the morning weather report. Even though the wind felt chilly at times, it made for some dry and gripping hiking conditions on the slabs. The views on the slide were just as awesome as I remember them.

Kyle making his way up the beginning of the slick north slide.

View of Mt. Osceola from the north slide.

Kyle boulder hopping to the heavens.

Looking down the slide.

I tried to capture the angle of the climb in this picture.

Kyle maneuvering around the slab section of the slide.

Looking down from the top of the slide.

Me on the top of the slide with Mt. Osceola behind me.

Once we took in our last view from the North slide, we headed over to North Tripyramid stopped to eat a snack and then headed over to the Middle and South Peaks.  The peaks were wooded and only offered a few view points.  But when we reached the South Slide the views were back.

A portion of the trail up on North Tripyramid.

Looking towards Mt. Pasasconway and Mt. Chocura in the distance from Middle Tripyramid.

A view towards Waterville Valley ski area / Mt. Tecumseh from the South Peak.

I busted out the hiking poles for the climb down the south slide trail.  Big steps off of boulders were needed at the top of the trail and it turned into smaller rocks and scree towards the bottom.  Climbing down the boulders were knee busters, but the scree made for some very welcoming soft footing.  When we got past the slide and back into the woods, the trail was fast leading into the junction of Livermore Road.  We flew down Livermore Road again and ran into a group of about 30 people who were standing in front of the Norway Cascades trail head.  It seemed that they had just visited them, but we didn't feel like dealing with a crowd of people if they hadn't.  We decided to bypass the Kettles side trail because it would be 0.8 miles and our legs were feeling a little weary at this point.  When we finally hit the "Big Pines" we went in to take a look.  They were big!  And there was a path which led to a river behind them.  Someone had built a bunch of little cairns along the embankment of the river.  I stopped to fill my water bottle with my good 'ole filtration pump while Kyle laid on his backpack and soaked up some rays.

A view of Sandwich Mt (left) and Welch & Dickey Mts. (right) from a vista point on the south slide.

Looking up to the bouldery descent of the south slide.

More views from the south slide towards Sandwich Mountain.

The Big Pines!

My pack next to one of the big pines for perspective.

Mini cairns on the Mad River bed.

A distant view of north slide as seen from Livermore Road

We got back to the car at about 1:15.  We had hiked 11 miles in about 6 hours not including the breaks we took along the way.  We finished so early that on the ride home I felt a little guilty because we were missing a great afternoon, but Kyle and I finally got a chance to enjoy a burger and beer after a hike at an UNOs in Concord, NH.