Sunday January 16, 2005

Mt Liberty

Our first hike in two months - Vacation, the Holidays, and work have kept from the mountains.

This is the route we took today up to the summit of Mt Liberty.

Directions to the trailhead: Rte 93 north to exit 34A. Merge onto Rte 3. Turn right into the first parking lot after the Flume Visitor Center.

Time to summit: 2:00

This is the profile of the hike to the summit from our GPS.

A 3-D view of our hike.

We started out at 8 AM with the temp at 10 degrees. 20 minutes later we stop to remove a layer as we warm up.

The trail was well packed by others so we made good time, arriving at the Liberty Springs Tent site in 2 hours.

A shot of the trail looking upwards.

And behind us. We ended up barebooting the entire hike. There were only a couple of icey sections that were easy to negotiate.

We stopped for a short break.

You can see that we brought our snow shoes and crampons - better to have them and not need them.

About 100 yards before we reached the Franconia Ridge trail we had a suprise visitor.

This grouse came down the trail and right up to us.

And I do mean right up to us! It liked Bob and stayed with us even as Bob took off his pack to get the camera out and placed it down right next to the bird.

Geri kept her distance :>

A few minutes later we reached the Franconia Ridge.

Geri approaching the treeline.

Almost there - we were lucky to have it be almost windless.

Just before the summit the trail passes through a section of tall trees that provided a good wind block when needed.

The summit of Mt Liberty.

Thats CAnnon Mountain.

The ski trails of Loon Mountain.

The two of us with Mt Lincoln in the background. The last time we were here was on Sep 11th - a very differant place.

A shot of Mt Lincoln on the left and Mt Garfield on the right.

A shot of Mt Flume.

Mt Moosilauke in the distance. Although the clouds were thick, they were high providing us with great views in all directions.

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