Day 105 As Good as it Gets
Today we hiked over 9 peaks all of which were over 4,000 feet and had probably the best day on trail yet.
I slept incredibly last night. I woke up twice between 11PM and 6:30AM but I fell back asleep quickly both times.
We started hiking around 7:30. We stopped briefly to talk with a couple other thru hikers. One was named The Hiking Tomato and the other was named Boomerang. Both of them started in early January. It’s cool to still be meeting new through hikers this far into the experience.
In the morning, we hiked about 2 miles then stopped at Liberty Springs Campsite to fill up water. Then we finished the ascent of Mount Liberty. The summit itself was a short 0.3 blue blaze. But I don’t think I’ve hiked it before and the views from the top were amazing.
We then began hiking Franconia Ridge. I’ve hiked it once before, but it’s some of the most beautiful trail I’ve ever seen. Usually it’s very crowded with people, but since it’s a weekday and there were scattered thunderstorms in the forecast, we basically had the ridge to ourselves. We started by climbing up Little Haystack mountain, which isn’t officially one of the 4000 foot mountains of the whites, because it lacks prominence. However, it is one of the more beautiful peaks in the range. We had fantastic views on the way up and from the summit.
For those who may be unfamiliar, New Hampshire has a list of around fifty 4,000 foot mountains that are designated as official 4000 footers. Many people try to hike all of the 4000 footers, and doing so is seen as quite an accomplishment.
After Little Haystack, we hiked up Mount Lincoln. The trail up to Lincoln is stunning. The views from the top are also amazing. It always feels surreal hiking in such a beautiful place. Often the trail doesn’t even feel like hiking, it’s more like floating in the clouds.
After Lincoln, we climbed the last mountain of Franconia Ridge, Mount Lafayette. Lafayette is the tallest mountain in Franconia, at 5,246 feet. By the time we made it to the top clouds had rolled in. Seeing the clouds blow by at or below the level of the peak was awesome. We occasionally had views between clouds as well.
Then we descended steeply and hiked over to Mount Garfield. The ascent up and down Garfield is also very steep, but pretty short. It definitely made us tired quickly. On the way over we had many good views looking back towards Franconia Ridge.
Overall today we took our time and went slowly. This was a combination of enjoying the beautiful trail around us and trying to step carefully to avoid injury. At this stage of the hike an injury would be the only thing that I could see stopping me from finishing the trail. And given the dramatic increase in difficulty and technicality of the trail in the Whites, I would rather take it slow and play it safe.
After Garfield, we picked up the pace a little bit since we had about 13 miles left to hike. But we a till took our time and made sure to be careful with every step. Our next stop was the Galehead hut. They had running water and full bathrooms, which we took advantage of. Then we hiked a half mile blue blaze to the summit of Galehead Mountain. Despite being one of the 4000 foot peaks, Galehead is one of the least impressive ones. The summit is just a small pile of rocks. It was good to check this peak off list with a relatively quick side trail.
After Galehead was a very steep 2 mile climb up South Twin Mountain. Unlike Galehead, South Twin had stunning views. We could look back and see Liberty and Franconia, where we’d come from that morning. We could even see back to Moosilauke, just to the left of Franconia Ridge. We also had clear views of Mount Washington and the Presidential Range to our east.
Although South Twin was our last difficult climb for the day, we were not done hitting 4000 foot mountains just yet. On the more gradual descent down, we hit Mt Guyot which isn’t technically a 4000 footer for the same reason Little Haystack isn’t. But it is the summit that stands over 4000 feet tall.
After Guyot, we had a very short blue blaze to Mount Zealand, which is a 4000 footer, but doesn’t have very good views. Another one I’m glad to have checked off the list.
After Zealand, we saw a male grouse on the trail. Then we had one overlook and some cool flowers.
Then we descend down to around 2000 feet and walked relatively flat trail for a few miles. On the way down, we passed a cool waterfall called Zealand Falls.
We arrived at camp around 8:45. Overall, we hiked 20.7 official AT miles, but counting blue blazes we probably did over 22 miles today. Given the difficulty of the trail, today really kicked our butts. We hiked for around 13 hours and had an incredible day. It was also incredibly relieving to get to camp and get in my tent.
After we set up our tents, there was some thunder and then it started to pour rain. I don’t believe this was in the forecast, but hopefully it blows over by the morning.
The miles we hiked today are certainly some of the most beautiful and difficult miles on the whole Appalachian Trail. We were expecting thunderstorms throughout the day, but ended up having perfect weather. I’m incredibly grateful that the weather held for us, and we were able to experience the miles today in good conditions.
Tomorrow we will grab a resupply that we had mailed to a visitor center at a road crossing. It’s supposed to rain in the afternoon, but hopefully we can hike a good chunk of the Presidential range before the rain really starts. We plan to cover around 16 miles, which won’t be easy but should be a good bit simpler than today.
Good night,
Walker
If you want to follow Spencer, here is his log:
https://www.instagram.com/baxter.bound?utm_source=qr&igsh=MWx4MzRqa3M4dGk3Mw==
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