12/9/22
Day Seventy-Seven

Today was back to the normal kind of hiking aka lots of climbing and lots of single track. I hiked up Liberty Spring Trail for the first time in years and with no snow until reaching Franconia Ridge, and even then only a trace amount, I felt strong and proud of how quickly I made my ascent. I also have been in new winter trail runners for the last few hikes and am loving them. I had never hiked Franconia Ridge Trail between Little Haystack and Liberty before so it was nice to complete this stretch of trail. The final climb up to Little Haystack was a little steep but nothing more than normal NE trails. As soon as I broke treeline, the winds hit me. It was most definitely more than the 20mph winds that Mountain Forecast claimed we would be having and although I had been toying with the idea of doing Franconia Ridge, the winds made the decision an easy no. The descent down Falling Waters (which isn’t recommended) was a mixed bag, starting with very thick ice followed by almost bare trail, followed again by thick ice and water crossings, and then bare trail. The walk along Franconia Bike Path back to my car was really nice. It reminded me a lot of when my husband and I would do the bike path on bikes back before I found hiking, over a decade ago now. 

Daily Miles: 11.83

Daily Vert: 4050’

Overall Mileage: 851.83

Overall Vert: 250,695’

Trace: 37.1% -> 37.6% 

Trails:

Whitehouse Trail

Liberty Spring Trail

Franconia Ridge Trail

Falling Waters Trail

Franconia Bike Path