Start: Franconia Notch, NH
SORE!!!! Is an understatement of how we felt when we woke up this morning! Everything from my fingers (from gripping my poles so tightly yesterday) to my toes was aching. The excitement I was feeling to hike Franconia Ridge (my favorite spot EVER!!!) seemed to ease the aching though. We packed up, checked out of the motel and got a ride to Franconia Notch. We climbed almost 3500 feet to Little Haystack Mountain (4800 feet). Walking across the ridge, we summitted Mt. Lincoln (5,089 feet) and Mt. Lafayette (5,259 feet). The views were amazing! Looking to the left, I could see the mountains we have come from and looking to the right were the mountains we were headed towards. Garfield, North and South Twin and the Presidentials stood tall in the shadow of Mt. Washington in the distance. You can't beat the views along this ridge! We took a break on Lafayette just to soak it all in. The forecast for tonight and tomorrow call for rain so we were happy to have the clear views while we were on the ridge. We descended down Lafayette and then climbed Mt. Garfield (4500 feet). Just as we passed Garfield Ridge Campsite, we literally walked down a waterfall. Beautiful and slippery! We reached Galehead Hut and took a break before taking on the climb up South Twin. The trail literally shot up over 1100 feet in .7 miles before reaching the peak (4902 feet). The clouds were rolling in! We had 2 more miles to Guyot Shelter (plus a mile to the shelter on a side trail) and wanted to make it there before the rain. We continued on, reached the shelter, and set up camp just in time! It is supposed to rain through the night... I like the sound of rain on the tent, but I'm not big on dealing with wet stuff in the morning. Hopefully, we will stay dry along with most of our stuff! Today was another exhausting (15.8 miles), but beautiful day!
End: Guyot Shelter
Peace Be The Journey
~Flicka
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