Breaking Trail on the Southern Franconia Ridge

Trip Details
Date: March 9^rh, 2018
Total Distance: 9.33 mi (via Garmin fenix 5X)
Total Time: 5 hours 38 minutes
Total Elevation: 4314 ft gained
Click for more details.

Two weekends ago the White Mountains had dangerously low snow levels for the winter and it was still February. No worries, though, Mother Nature would remind all of us that we live in New England and dump close to two feet of snow on us (and as I write this five days later she is dumping another 12+ inches on us). Our last hike of the 2018 winter season also gave us our first experience at trail breaking since 2014. We knew it would slow us down and require a lot more effort than we have become accustomed to. My co-worker, Detroit Rock City, who has become a hiking machine since his arrival in New England about a year ago offered to join us and assist with the trail breaking. Besides the tiring aspect involved with this hike, it was actually quite fun due to the relatively warm conditions and lack of any wind.

• We parked at The Basin and were welcomed to a semi-plowed bike path. Why the state plows this I have no idea, but it was obviously plowed as you could see cut marks from the plow on the sides of the path. This was a nice surprise. We then barebooted to the herd path, which is easy to find.
• When trying to cross the little downed tree bridge at the start of the herd path, I completely recommend not trying to do this in snowshoes. It was pretty humorous watching me trying to not fall into the little brook. On the way out I removed my snowshoes prior to crossing this bridge.
• There was evidence of recent activity on the herd path and this continued all the way to the junction with the Flume Slide Trail. We used snowshoes, but they probably were not completely needed as the highly eroded areas of the trail where water continually runs down them were lacking any snow. This was beating up our snowshoes good.
• The story was instantly different once we continued on the Liberty Spring Trail from the junction as the evidence of usage disappeared and trail breaking began. Apparently, the previous hiker was heading for the Flume Slide Trail that since this hike I have learned people hike it in the winter. Good for those people, but I do not think I have the cohones for that at this point.
• I had forgotten how exhausting trail breaking was and when we rotated it was instantly less exhausting. Thankfully, it looked like there was some good steep areas to get a decent butt slide on our descent.
• The ice bridge was dicey at the large brook, but thankfully it had a solid enough strip for us to get across on. Who knows how much longer this will remain as all the other brooks and streams were completely open.
• When we arrived at the Liberty Spring Tentsite there was evidence that someone was recently here. This actually made trail breaking slightly easier. This evidence would continue all the way to Mt. Flume.
• The rest of the hike was basically uneventful all the way to Mt. Flume and back. The Franconia Ridge had one or two duck under blowdowns, but otherwise this entire hike was free of them. 
• In-between the summits on the Mt. Liberty side there is some ledges/slab that you normally traverse over during the non-winter months, well during the winter with all this snow it basically created a slope that made it quite hard to get past. We had to hug the scrub. I actually wonder if we should have just slid down the slope into the woods as when we were making our way back to Mt. Liberty I took a quick look and it did not look like you would slide off a cliff or anything.
• After Mt. Flume we had hoped some good butt sliding would come into play, but the snow was not packed down enough yet. This was not a complete bummer, though, as we got to slide/ski a good amount with our snowshoes to still make quick work of our entire descent. 
• As we prepped to get off the bridge I happened to notice that I actually had amazing LTE Sprint service so as we geared up I cranked some Third Eye Blind "Semi-Charmed Life". This was fun. I have to give Sprint some credit for signing a bunch of new extended rural contracts that have actually made my phone less useless in the White Mountains.
• This trip ended up completing the Franconia Ridge for all three of us in the winter, and also completed the entire Franconia Notch for BishopX and I.

Overall it put BishopX and I at 31 winter peaks for our goal of finishing the 48 before we turn 40. Five years left to get 17 peaks. Barring any injuries or Mother Nature just screwing with us I think we got this!

Below are some photos from the hike:

The Bike Path at The Basin was nicely plowed.

Looking north on the Bike Path. Restrooms are closed for the season.

The "gates" at the start of the herd path. That downed tree bridge is helpful from getting wet, but I would recommend waiting till you are over it before putting your snowshoes on or your may go in the water regardless.

A dusting over a recent set of footprints.

Some recent footprints at the Liberty Springs Tentsite. Would probably have been an interesting night of camping.

Looking up the trail from the tentsite. Seeing this little bit of usage on the trail helped to lessen the trail breaking load we had.

Mt. Liberty summit

Looking down the Mt. Liberty summit cliff into the snowy abyss.

Looking into the Pemi.

I believe this is the actual summit.

Detroit Rock City and BishopX

You wouldn't like BishopX when he is angry!

EXTREME CLOSE-UP! I am currently on the summit of Mt. Flume sitting in a snow drift and it was one of the most comfortable things in the world.

BishopX

Detroit Rock City is loving the snow drift, too!

Looking along the Mt. Flume cliff.

Here is a snowy tree on the Mt. Flume summit... It was a cloudy day. There was not much to take photos of.

This picture does not do this justice. We had to hold on the scrub along the edge to make it around this slope area. This is normally a ledge/slab.

Detroit Rock City and my Garmin watches showed quite a bit of difference. I am not sure which is more accurate. Used the distance as a ballpark estimate.