The Feathered Hat
Active member
Trails: Liberty Springs w/bushwhack, Franconia Ridge
Mileage: ~8
Time: 5 hours
Folks: (Human) Loanshark, Rob, Colin, James, The Feathered Hat. (Canine) Polly and Tuckerman.
You know how something goes wrong at the beginning of the day and then the whole rest of the day seems to go wrong too? This wasn't one of those days, fortunately. But its beginning was inauspicious: A few miles from the house I realized I had forgotten my camera, so I had to kill some time going back to retrieve it, and then at the trailhead before we got underway Polly wandered off in a direction I didn't notice. It turned out that she didn't go far, but I was worried for a few minutes when I couldn't find her. We had scheduled an 8 a.m. start from The Basin (north) parking lot in the Notch and by the time the delays were dealt with we finally got going around 8:30. By then we were ready to get serious, very serious.
For example, at the first major creek crossing on the lower portion of the Liberty Springs Trail, Loanshark stopped to check Feathered Hat's credit score while Tuckerman sniffed for stock certificates hidden beneath the snow and James wondered if there is in fact gold in them thar hills:
In short order we were all delayering, and then as the climb got steep in the long, arduous, elevation-gaining section below the Liberty Springs tent site we delayered again -- most of us shed even the gloves and Colin was down to a single shirt. Polly and Tuckerman insisted on wearing their fur coats, however:
But by the time we reached the top of the ridge, where thick cloud cover had frozen into a powder sugar of rime ice, fur coats didn't seem like such a bad idea. Here, at the junction with the Franconia Ridge Trail, the group discusses shearing Polly just to make things fair:
As we neared the Mt. Liberty summit, the mood improved even as the temperature dropped, the breeze picked up and the layers went back on. After an extraordinarily beautiful woman passed us by -- in the company of her boyfriend, alas -- Rob and Colin happily agreed to pose for next year's Handsome, Available Young Men of the White Mountains calendar:
Meanwhile, I thought Polly and Tuckerman were also calendar-posing amongst the ice, but it turned out they were just worried Rocket21 would show up -- note the *very* concerned expressions:
At the summit, Loanshark looked into the gloom, checking for any Rocket signs -- we had a score to settle with the guy, since he had given us completely bogus directions to a bushwhack. Tuckerman, though, decided he had better things to do than worry about short little snowshoers:
And even though Mt. Liberty was Polly's first NH 4K (and Tuckerman's 13th), you can see that they're still very, very worried...
To conclude: As is usual on a Mt. Liberty trip, the climb up took hours and the descent took five minutes. We did find the bushwhack, finally, and I believe both Tuckerman and Polly marked it in their appropriate way. And while we looked every where for her, we never did see La Femme du Liberte', darn it...
A baker's dozen of photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99682097@N00/sets/72157623109762231/
The Feathered Hat
stevebjerklie at yahoo dot com.
____________________________________
Tuckerman's and Polly's report for dogs:
Just enough unfrozen water along the route to keep us happy.
Someone left frozen vomit at the Liberty Springs tent site. Yay! Yum!
Rime ice on rocks is weird to walk over. Watch your step.
Liberty Springs is absolutely the best trail in the Whites for running down.
At the summit, Big Boss Man said, "Congrats, Polly, just 47 to go!" He's right -- we'd both really, really like to chase 47 more chipmunks.
*** Three sniffs (out of four). T-Dog and P-Dog say check it out.
Mileage: ~8
Time: 5 hours
Folks: (Human) Loanshark, Rob, Colin, James, The Feathered Hat. (Canine) Polly and Tuckerman.
You know how something goes wrong at the beginning of the day and then the whole rest of the day seems to go wrong too? This wasn't one of those days, fortunately. But its beginning was inauspicious: A few miles from the house I realized I had forgotten my camera, so I had to kill some time going back to retrieve it, and then at the trailhead before we got underway Polly wandered off in a direction I didn't notice. It turned out that she didn't go far, but I was worried for a few minutes when I couldn't find her. We had scheduled an 8 a.m. start from The Basin (north) parking lot in the Notch and by the time the delays were dealt with we finally got going around 8:30. By then we were ready to get serious, very serious.
For example, at the first major creek crossing on the lower portion of the Liberty Springs Trail, Loanshark stopped to check Feathered Hat's credit score while Tuckerman sniffed for stock certificates hidden beneath the snow and James wondered if there is in fact gold in them thar hills:
In short order we were all delayering, and then as the climb got steep in the long, arduous, elevation-gaining section below the Liberty Springs tent site we delayered again -- most of us shed even the gloves and Colin was down to a single shirt. Polly and Tuckerman insisted on wearing their fur coats, however:
But by the time we reached the top of the ridge, where thick cloud cover had frozen into a powder sugar of rime ice, fur coats didn't seem like such a bad idea. Here, at the junction with the Franconia Ridge Trail, the group discusses shearing Polly just to make things fair:
As we neared the Mt. Liberty summit, the mood improved even as the temperature dropped, the breeze picked up and the layers went back on. After an extraordinarily beautiful woman passed us by -- in the company of her boyfriend, alas -- Rob and Colin happily agreed to pose for next year's Handsome, Available Young Men of the White Mountains calendar:
Meanwhile, I thought Polly and Tuckerman were also calendar-posing amongst the ice, but it turned out they were just worried Rocket21 would show up -- note the *very* concerned expressions:
At the summit, Loanshark looked into the gloom, checking for any Rocket signs -- we had a score to settle with the guy, since he had given us completely bogus directions to a bushwhack. Tuckerman, though, decided he had better things to do than worry about short little snowshoers:
And even though Mt. Liberty was Polly's first NH 4K (and Tuckerman's 13th), you can see that they're still very, very worried...
To conclude: As is usual on a Mt. Liberty trip, the climb up took hours and the descent took five minutes. We did find the bushwhack, finally, and I believe both Tuckerman and Polly marked it in their appropriate way. And while we looked every where for her, we never did see La Femme du Liberte', darn it...
A baker's dozen of photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99682097@N00/sets/72157623109762231/
The Feathered Hat
stevebjerklie at yahoo dot com.
____________________________________
Tuckerman's and Polly's report for dogs:
Just enough unfrozen water along the route to keep us happy.
Someone left frozen vomit at the Liberty Springs tent site. Yay! Yum!
Rime ice on rocks is weird to walk over. Watch your step.
Liberty Springs is absolutely the best trail in the Whites for running down.
At the summit, Big Boss Man said, "Congrats, Polly, just 47 to go!" He's right -- we'd both really, really like to chase 47 more chipmunks.
*** Three sniffs (out of four). T-Dog and P-Dog say check it out.
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