So this is a story about three brothers (Jim, Ian, Mike) and one old man (me). Ian wanted to hike the Franconia Ridge Trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Jim & Mike decided to hike it with him and somewhere along the way, I was invited or invited myself to join them. We all met at the airport and flew to Boston. Then we drove through several storms to New Hampshire. Due to the weather, the five feet of snow on the north facing sections of the trail and the amount of daylight left, the plans were revised and we decided to start at the Liberty Spring Trailhead.
We organized the packs in the parking lot...
...grabbed everything we thought we would need and headed up to the Liberty Spring campsite.
This would be the first section of the Appalachian Trail that I have hiked. I think the McDonnell brothers said the same thing.
It's only 2.6 miles to the campsite...this looks easy enough.
But the trail quickly turned steep and rocky.
There were frequent stops to remove layers and to let me catch up.
Here's Jim helping the old timer cross the brook.
At some point along the trail, we had to put on our headlamps. We also found some hard packed snow and ice along the trail as we hiked up the rocky mountain trail. We got to the Liberty Spring campsite after sunset and as the rain began to fall. We set up the tents on the wooden platforms provided by the Appalachian Mountain Club and boiled water for our freeze dried dinners and some hot chocolate that Ian brought with him. It was all smiles at the end of the night.
Photos were taken by either Mike, Gregg, Jim or Ian.
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