Need advice for January 13 in Franconia Notch

[Charlie and Beth]

I'm looking for advice from experienced winter hikers.

My son who is a senior at WPI is at Cannon Mtn skiing for a long weekend before classes start with his fraternity brothers. He, and a few of his friends, want me to come over from Maine on Saturday (1/13) and hike with them and left the hiking plans up to me.

I was thinking we would hike Cannon but then thought they might want to try something different so was thinking about Liberty and Flume. I haven't hiked any of these three but have done many other 4000+ including a few winter peaks last winter with little snow but much ice.

Any ideas?

Beth

 

[grouseking]

I'd definitely pack some traction, especially if you are not sure footed. You might be able to get away with booting the Liberty Springs trail, but better safe than sorry. Esp since we had the flash freeze this week so I'm assuming there is some good hard ice up there. If you've done winter 4ks before, I wouldn't worry about these. I did Liberty back in March and it was my first time using crampons. I had no trouble at all. I've never been to Flume before and I didn't feel like adding a couple more miles to an already great trip when I hiked Liberty.

grouseking

 

[Charlie and Beth]

Liberty, it is then

Thanks so much for the help, it is appreciated.

Beth

 

[grouseking]

Prepare for rapidly dropping temps if you are hiking today. An arctic front is comin down and will touch off squalls and snow showers and much colder temperatures thruout the day. Tomorrow will prob be a blustery, cold and snowy day above treeline. Stay warm!

grouseking

 

[TDawg]

I hiked Liberty via Liberty Springs a few days ago and there was no ice to speak of, I could have barebooted all the way up if I didn't have my crampons. But I did and I threw them on at the tentsite. Of course things can change quickly here in NE.

 

[Charlie and Beth]

We climbed Cannon

Thanks so much for all the advice, I was all set to go up Liberty Springs with the guys. Our plan was to meet at the Cannon Tram parking lot at 9:30 and then head down to the trailhead, but they got there late and it was raining so we decided to do Cannon instead since we were there.

We had a great time,the trail was icy on the bottom and snowish on the top 1/3 but we did fine with a little bit of traction. The rain stopped pretty soon after we were on the trail. The viewpoints were completely socked in so we didn't get any views but the guys all enjoyed the hike and talked about meeting me to hike Moosilauke soon.

Beth