spaddock
New member
All week the plan had been to do the Lafayette, Lincoln, Liberty, and hopefully Flume loop and all week the forecast for Saturday was looking lousy. We knew there was another group climbing the Hancocks that day and that got my vote but my other two buddies wanted to try for Lafayette and turn back if necessary. At 7:30am we called my wife for an updated High Summits forecast and it was still calling for snow/rain and 60-90mph winds with gusts. With that info they still wanted to go for it so I went along thinking this would be the first hike I had to turn around for.
We were on trail by 8:15am going up the Old Bridle Path. At one of our layer changing breaks we bumped into a group of three VFTT'ers: Lawn Sale, dRitter, and Charly. That was cool, my "VFTT slut list" was growing quickly. We took turns passing each other pretty much the entire way. Crampons were the way to go this day, it felt weird not packing my snowshoes in the middle of January but there was just no snow.
When we got out to the first lookout it was spectacular. We were actually under blue skies and the southerly winds were blowing in more clear weather, unbelievable. OK, not unbelievable, mountain forecasts are always changing but you know what I mean...
With that all our spirits were lifted and we felt we'd have a window for Lafayette. We quickly got to the hut and then on for the last push. I absolutely love climbing above treeline, I love being able to see your target, I find is so encouraging, and the views were just so good. We made it to the summit of Lafayette and were pretty pleased. My buddy took out his wind speed tool and it was measuring 43mph, not too bad. We could see a change of weather was coming so we quickly started down Lincoln.
As we were descending we could see Lafayette getting socked over by the clouds and it started to rain little ice balls that were blowing right at us. Thankfully my goggles and face mask acted like a shield. The windspeed was up to about 55mph. We made it to Lincoln pretty quickly, I love ridgewalks, but we didn't stay long it was on to Little Haystack. On top of LH the winds topped out at 66mph, probably a max for me. We got some awesome photos on top and headed for Liberty.
It seemed like a long go to get to the Liberty Springs turnoff but we were completely sheltered by the trees. At the turnoff we split into two groups of three, one group went down and the other went up to Liberty. Getting to the Liberty summit didn't take too long and it was actually sunny on top. From there we decided to go on to Flume, in hindsight I probably shouldn't have. We quickly descended into the col and it started to hale. I figured I'd tough it out, finishing Flume my climbing legs were getting tired and I was worried about reclimbing Liberty. I tagged Flume's summit and butt slid all the way back down to the col. Reclimbing Liberty was really tough, it seemed like I had to stop every 30 seconds my legs just didn't want to go up anymore. I was starting to look under rocks that would make good bivy spots. Had it not been for the fact that two people were waiting for me at the turnoff I just might have stopped. Slowly I made it back up to the summit to where my friends were getting a little worried. We stopped for a short break where i gulped down some water and ate a lot of chocolate. The descent was super fast pretty much jogged down. The crampons earned their keep that day.
After that hike we knew we wouldn't be hiking again Sunday so we broke camp and drove the 5.5 hours back home. Another good adventure!
-Shayne
We were on trail by 8:15am going up the Old Bridle Path. At one of our layer changing breaks we bumped into a group of three VFTT'ers: Lawn Sale, dRitter, and Charly. That was cool, my "VFTT slut list" was growing quickly. We took turns passing each other pretty much the entire way. Crampons were the way to go this day, it felt weird not packing my snowshoes in the middle of January but there was just no snow.
When we got out to the first lookout it was spectacular. We were actually under blue skies and the southerly winds were blowing in more clear weather, unbelievable. OK, not unbelievable, mountain forecasts are always changing but you know what I mean...
With that all our spirits were lifted and we felt we'd have a window for Lafayette. We quickly got to the hut and then on for the last push. I absolutely love climbing above treeline, I love being able to see your target, I find is so encouraging, and the views were just so good. We made it to the summit of Lafayette and were pretty pleased. My buddy took out his wind speed tool and it was measuring 43mph, not too bad. We could see a change of weather was coming so we quickly started down Lincoln. As we were descending we could see Lafayette getting socked over by the clouds and it started to rain little ice balls that were blowing right at us. Thankfully my goggles and face mask acted like a shield. The windspeed was up to about 55mph. We made it to Lincoln pretty quickly, I love ridgewalks, but we didn't stay long it was on to Little Haystack. On top of LH the winds topped out at 66mph, probably a max for me. We got some awesome photos on top and headed for Liberty.
It seemed like a long go to get to the Liberty Springs turnoff but we were completely sheltered by the trees. At the turnoff we split into two groups of three, one group went down and the other went up to Liberty. Getting to the Liberty summit didn't take too long and it was actually sunny on top. From there we decided to go on to Flume, in hindsight I probably shouldn't have. We quickly descended into the col and it started to hale. I figured I'd tough it out, finishing Flume my climbing legs were getting tired and I was worried about reclimbing Liberty. I tagged Flume's summit and butt slid all the way back down to the col. Reclimbing Liberty was really tough, it seemed like I had to stop every 30 seconds my legs just didn't want to go up anymore. I was starting to look under rocks that would make good bivy spots. Had it not been for the fact that two people were waiting for me at the turnoff I just might have stopped. Slowly I made it back up to the summit to where my friends were getting a little worried. We stopped for a short break where i gulped down some water and ate a lot of chocolate. The descent was super fast pretty much jogged down. The crampons earned their keep that day.
After that hike we knew we wouldn't be hiking again Sunday so we broke camp and drove the 5.5 hours back home. Another good adventure!
-Shayne
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