Trip 23 Mount Liberty 4459’ 9/2/00

7.9 Miles 3050’ Elevation gain

Kevin, Judy and Emma

If I remember correctly, we had planned to do the Twins on this trip, but as we drove up through Franconia Notch the weather deteriorated, and north of the notch it was terrible. We decided to head back down the notch to where the weather had not been so bad and we had seen the mountain summits on the drive up. Jude and Emma needed to still get Liberty and the Flume so though I didn’t relish the thought of facing the unrelentingly vertical Liberty Springs Trail, we decided to take a shot at it. Starting at The Basin parking lot on the southside of the highway, we take the paved bike trail down to the trailhead, adding about a mile and a half to the trip. You begin to climb immediately and you don’t stop until you reach the summit. It levels off only slightly at the Liberty Springs Tent site, the only semblance of a break in the vertical ascent. The fog is thick and there are no views again. Although my trips to Zealand and the Bonds, the Carters, Chocorua and Monroe were on excellent days, all the trips Jude and I have been on this year have been without good visibility. Jude and I have now been on Hale which was cloudy and had little view, Tom, Field and Willey had cloudy short distant views, Garfield was totally fogged, Jefferson Adams and Madison were completely socked in for our trip there, the miserable trip to Isolation, and now Liberty. Thank goodness we had Acadia together in June. The climb being hard and the weather not being inducive to further hiking we decided not to go to Mount Flume on this trip, and began the relentless vertical descent of Liberty Springs trail. We made it back out without any problems, but it had ben such a beautiful day the first time I had done it, I wished Jude could have at least enjoyed a view for all of her effort. Jude had been on eight mountain summits so far this year and had little to no visibility on any of them, not fair.
K(36) J(28) E(14)