50º on the Franconia Ridge in February!

Trip Details
Date: February 24^th, 2017
Total Distance: 9.97 mi (via Trimble Outdoors Navigator Pro on iPhone 4S)
Total Time: 5 hours 46 minutes
Total Elevation: 3978 ft gained
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In-between getting dumped on with snow, an artic blast blew into New England that saw highs on Mt. Washington (the mountain I use as a baseline) in the negative teens. Due to this, we decided to bail on hiking two weeks ago instead of trying to battle the cold, wind, and frostbite. Instead I spent all day fixing a bathroom exhaust fan... Needless to say, I am not a handy man. Two weeks later and only one more Friday (we hike every other Friday due to our work schedules) before the Spring Equinox, our backs were against the wall. Like the rest of the winter, a heat wave rolled in after we got snow, but of course on the day we wanted to hike it was forecasted to rain. The rain was scheduled to start in the late morning. With the warm temperatures we could not pass up the chance to go hiking so we decided on the reasonable thing and got up even earlier to hit the trail before 0700. The plan was to do Mt. Liberty and Mt. Flume unless once we got to the Franconia Notch area and the Franconia Ridge was in the clear. It was, so we took the gamble.

The trail conditions on the Old Bridle Path were all over the place. A solid monorail was present, but step off it and you sunk down to at least your knee. Once the trail had started to gain elevation we ran into our next issue which was all the snow had fallen off the trees in the warm weather. No one had packed the trail back down with snowshoes and instead pushed through with microspikes. There was no evidence of any snowshoe use on this part of the trail at all. Eventually, we arrived at Greenleaf Hut, which looked like it could open at any time as most of the snow around it had melted away.

The pretty stable monorail was present before we started gaining real elevation.

The Franconia Ridge from the first outlook along the trail. There are two better outlooks a we bit further up the trail.

Greenleaf Hut with Mt. Lafayette in the background.

A nice thawing pond behind Greenleaf Hut.

The Greenleaf Trail up to the summit of Mt. Lafayette was a mix of the chopped up trail, narrow ice paths, snowfields, bare rock, and mud. It was easy to follow the cairns, which were completely exposed. We lost the trail near a snowfield when the rocky knob is blocking your view of the summit. We went right around the knob and the trail goes left. Once on top of the knob we saw the cairns and made our way back to the trail. A few minutes later we were standing on the summit, by ourselves, in February, in 40+ºF weather, and with only a light wind. The only small complaint is some clouds blew in obscuring the view just slightly. 

Looking down the Greenleaf Trail. The narrow snow and ice path that remains.

Looking up the Greenleaf Trail. That is the rocky knob at the top of the photo that we went around the wrong way.

The classic shot...with a bit of fog rolling in.

Owls Head hanging out under the clouds.

Greenleaf Hut in the foreground and Cannon Mt. in the background.

Summit markers

We hung out a bit, put our jackets on, and then made our way onto the ridge. The snow conditions here were annoying. Bare rock, mud, narrow ice sections, and waist deep snow were all on the menu. The snow sections were short enough that we stayed in microspikes, but honestly if someone is willing to switch back-and-forth the trail could use some work. The best views of the day were from Mt. Truman as the clouds were completely gone, there was no wind, and the temperatures were over 50ºF. Sadly, I took no photos.

Back on the ridge, the conditions continued to stink. We pushed on and in short enough time we were standing on the summit of Mt. Lincoln. Once again, the clouds started to blow in a bit obscuring the view, but temperatures were still in the fifties and winds were minimal. 

The reverse shot...with some fog starting to obscure Mt. Lafayette.

The Twins.

After one last exhausting push through waist deep snow on our way to Little Haystack, our next decision very easy. We were ahead of the weather still (no rain in sight) and the temperatures were very warm, but even with snowshoes continuing on to Mt. Liberty was of no interest. On Little Haystack, we ate some snacks and then got ready to venture down on to the Falling Waters Trail. The only issue is we did not pay attention and stayed on the ridge and after a few feet of more waist deep snow and no descending we turned around and corrected our wrong.

My new Cold Cold World backpack worked well.

Looking towards Mt. Lincoln.

Looking towards The Bonds.

Cannon Mt.

Mt. Liberty and Mt. Flume

BishopX and I

Falling Waters Trail had a visible monorail, but it was completely unstable. Even walking down the center of it was no guarantee that you would not sink into knee to waist deep snow. We continued to frustratingly push on to Shining Rock. 

Shining Rock frozen over.

After Shining Rock we threw in the towel and put snowshoes on. Going was much easier, but the trail was so unstable that we still found ourselves sinking in at times. Once we got to the waterfalls we saw some trails from cross-country skiers who were going down the side of them. Crazy! We stayed on the real trail and just kept motoring on. As we got near the end of the trail we saw a handful of tourists who really had no idea what they were getting into with these trail conditions.

Swiftwater Falls

Cool ice formation at the top of Swiftwater Falls.

Stairs Falls

BishopX in the final stretch.

Overall, it was a slow going trip even though we were still about 45 minutes faster than the White Mountain Guide Online times. We are used to going faster, but with all the deep snow this just was not the day. So we enjoyed the warm temperatures and the fact that it still had not rained yet and it was now the afternoon. While changing in the car, it started sprinkling and then while driving it started down pouring. We finished the exhausting hike at the Woodstock Inn & Brewery for food and beverages. I got myself a huge white chocolate macadamia nut ice cream cookie sandwich and it was amazing. Highly recommend!

The mileage is approximately off by just over a mile. Trimble Outdoors is retiring their software and service any day now so I really have to make the jump to another software.