go hike a mountain

It’s been almost a month since Jesse and I took this trip. I’ve just been lazy in writing this story and in resizing the photographs to go with it. So, I’ve forgotten some of the small details that might have made this story better, but we hope you enjoy it, either way.

As noted on the main page, Jesse and I have made a new goal for ourselves. We’re going to try and hike the high peaks of the White Mountains. There are 48 of them that lie above 4000 ft., and they’re generally referred to as the New Hampshire Four Thousand Footers. The tallest of all of these is Mt. Washington, and at 6288 ft. it is also the tallest in New England. We likely would have hiked Washington first to check it off of our list of state high points, but waited too late in the year to attempt it. By the end of September, the weather observatory at the summit said there was snowfall and hurricane winds. Sometimes we’re a little crazy, but we’re definitely not that reckless.

We chose Mt. Lincoln and Mt. Lafayette as the first two for no particular reason except that the views were said to be spectacular. The loop hike was to cover 8.8 miles and was estimated to take 6.5 hours by the New England hiking guide. We decided on Saturday afternoon that we’d gather supplies, get some sleep and try to leave for New Hampshire at 3 am, Sunday.

All this went well, except I wish we had both gone to sleep earlier. We took turns driving and by the time I pulled into the trailhead parking lot I was ready to crawl into the back seat and fall asleep. The sun was just beginning to rise high enough to warm us up in Franconia Notch when we started sorting and packing our gear. Jesse had another issue with water, but this time instead of it leaking all over his pack, he managed to ‘drop’ water on himself, soaking a large area of his pants. We had to run the car and turn on the heater with his pants draped over it to make them dry quickly. We hit the trail at 7:30 am.

If I remember correctly, the trail made a couple of stream crossings and at some point about 2 miles in, we ran into some waterfalls. Jesse decided he’d test the water and confirmed that it felt pretty cold.

He also thought it was important to test his skills on a natural balance beam.

And we picked a good spot for his yearbook photo.

When the sun got a little higher, it began illuminating all of the foliage. It was a little early for the changing of the leaves, but some trees still had a lot of nice color.

Near the summit of Little Haystack (which is too close to the summit of Lincoln for it to be considered its own mountain), we went off trail to take a break at Shining Rock which has this name because from the Notch, the water trickling slowly over it makes it appear to be shining. We snacked and rested and when we picked up our packs to take off, Jesse realized the whole bottom part of his pack was wet and there was a long trail of water coming from the area we were sitting at. There didn’t appear to be any leaks. All we could figure was that the nozzle of the hydration reservoir was underneath the pack the whole time and had just enough pressure against it to make it leak everywhere. Without a dryer this time, Jesse had to just hike with the pack being wet.

Nice face.

Not long after we left Shining Rock, the trail went above treeline.

We reached the summit of Little Haystack at about 11:30 am. We took a long break here. And occasionally, through the fog and clouds, we could catch glimpses of the summit of Lincoln which is behind Jesse here.

We also got a peek of Franconia Notch, where the car was parked.

This is a roughly 180 degree view of the Notch with Mt. Lincoln (the summit is cut off).

From Little Haystack, the summit of Mt. Lincoln was a .7 mile trek down into a col and along the ridge. Large, thick clouds kept sweeping over the mountains, which made us chilly and made for some eerie photos.

The hike was beginning to wear me down and we weren’t even half finished!

We finally reached the summit of Lincoln at about 12:30 pm. The views from this mountain were amazing.

We both relaxed for a while in the sun but the clouds started rolling in again.

We passed some interesting rock formations in this next section.

This view is east from the portion of the trail just before Lafayette.

The summit of Mt. Lafayette was about .9 miles from this point and we made it by 1:30 pm. This is a view northeast of Lafayette, where the trail leads to Mt. Garfield.

Jesse relaxes with a nice view of Mt. Washington in the distance.

Here are some signs that were at the summit. Again, the mountains in the distance are the Presidential Range, Mt. Washington being the tallest.

We left the summit at about 2 pm for the long 4 mile journey back to the car. The skies remained clear so we had nice views back up to the summits and of the valleys west and below us.

There’s not much to say about the remainder of our hike. We were both exhausted and were starting to get sore knees. This last shot was taken almost 2 hours after leaving the summit.

We made it back to the car by about 5 pm. I had a bad headache, which could have been caused by not eating enough or drinking enough water. Either way, I was in no condition to drive, so Jesse was forced to drive the 3 hours home on his own! I think I slept most of the way, curled up in the passenger seat and gritting my teeth because I felt so nauseous. Jesse told me later he almost pulled over for a short nap because he thought he wouldn’t make it, but he got us home safely.

Although I got a little sick my first time hiking in the White Mountains, I’m confident we can finish the 48, especially with the 6th and 7th highest ones out of the way now. We definitely won’t be doing such a long hike again if we have to drive up and drive back in the same day.