Ed'n Lauky
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- Feb 15, 2007
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And two makes thirty. It was supposed to read ‘and two makes thirty-two’ but it doesn’t always work out the way we planned. Two storms coming on the weekends and a couple of scheduling hitches all right at the end of winter and that’s all it took. Our goal, well mine I don’t think Duffy really cares, has been to split the winter hikes into three parts. With basically only Saturdays for hiking it’s hard to do much more. That being said, with 28 done and winter at an end I worked Saturday and took off Monday for a last winter hike. The goal was Liberty and Flume. The hike itself was pretty straightforward. As I had hoped, I found the trail, at least from the trailhead, broken in. It was a beautiful morning. The temperature was about 22 when we left. The sky was crystal clear. The trail was surprisingly firm so I opted for the crampons over the snowshoes at least to start. I ended up wearing them to the top of Liberty. As I went by I noticed that the Flume trail had not been broken out at all, which added to the difficulties of going up or down the slide in the winter totally ended any thoughts I might have had of doing a loop. It was a beautiful hike all the way up. Around 3000 feet the trees began to take on that winter wonderland look which only added to the beauty. The surprise came at the junction with the Franconia ridge trail when all previous tracks suddenly disappeared. Graybear had done the hike the day before and had gone all the way to Flume, but it was as if he had never been there. The trail had totally drifted in and would have to be broken out the rest of the way. The summit of Liberty was very windy and largely blown clear of snow. The sky had clouded over but the views were still very good. Windy as it was, I didn’t find it all that cold, though granted I didn’t sit down and have lunch there either. The hike to the top of Liberty was about perfect and to return to the car at that point would have made it a breeze. I was also running a bit behind schedule and had forgotten both how far it was to Flume and how much of a drop there was. The question was do I go for it or do I go back. The round trip would add 2.2 miles and another 1000 feet of elevation gain. I also was going to have to break trail the whole way. The other factor though was the peak-bagging factor. If you want Flume in the winter this is the way to do it. So I said to myself, cut the excuses and get moving. It was a long hike over to Flume. It took me longer than I had estimated, but when I arrived back on the top of Liberty and looked once again over at Flume there was a tremendous sense of satisfaction. It was worth it, well worth it. It was all-downhill from there to the Whitehouse trail. The Whitehouse trail, by the way, adds at least 200 ft round trip to the hike. At the beginning of the hike I never thought about it, but at the end my feeling was that if you are allowed to do so it might be easier to hike the snowmobile trail from the Flume center. It’s almost the same distance and it looks flat. As for Duffy I don’t know what to say. He did the whole trip in such an effortless way that I can’t speak of his gutsy performance or anything like that. For him it was simply another great day to be out. Well we didn’t quite reach our goal this year. Can we get 18 peaks in next year? I don’t really know. If we don’t hopefully there will be a 2009. Of the 30 hikes all but four have been solo and only one of those was a planned hike with someone else. The other three were chance encounters. Now that winter is over, I’ve already switched gears in my head. I have a new pair of summer hiking boots I want to break in. I’m ready to put away the snowshoes, Stableicers, crampons, down coat and ice axe and welcome the summer in. 
