  | Mt. Pierce and Mt. Eisenhower: August 16, 2009 Crude map of route This was about 9 miles, via Crawford Path with side trip to Mizpah Springs Hut on the way home. I think it took us about 6 hours. Most of Crawford Path is a steady, moderate climb. You can skip the hut unless you need water, saving probably a half mile, and the side loop to the hut has one steep section. This was our first anniversary! The first image (one of many where Edith is looking impatient) is the view of the ridge from Mt. Pierce to Mt. Eisenhower and on to Mt. Washington. The other photo was taken for us by another hiker on the Eisenhower summit. You can see, it was hot and hazy that day. We almost did a lamer hike that day because it was so hot, but this turned out to be a good choice. The sun was beating down hard, but it was in the 70s on the summits. |
Mt. Osceola and East Osceola: August 30, 2009 Crude map of route This is relatively easy for anyone, even with limited hiking skills. It's about 6.5 miles round trip, via Osceola Trail from Tripoli Rd. The parking area is at Thornton Gap. It's paved from Waterville Valley side, and the pavement ends at the parking area, so go in from the east. First half mile of the trail is a little rough (rocky) but the rest of the climb is pretty easy, wide and sandy gravel for a lot of the way. At the top there are no 360-degree views but there are several viewpoints. The best is an open rock ledge looking north to southeast. As you can see, we had a mix of clouds and sun that day. If you are not interested in peakbagging, you can turn around here, but if you are trying to complete the NH 48 4000 footers, you have to go over to East Peak (second photo). There are a couple of very steep parts on the ridge, but it took us less than an hour between them. The east peak is wooded and has no views, much to E's disappointment, so it's useful only for checking the box on your list. That's me sitting on the cairn marking the summit. The round trip was about 5 hours and we took a long lunch break and several other breaks. |    |
  | Cannon Mountain and Kinsman Ridge: September 6, 2009 Crude map of route This long loop trip took us 9 hours and we were trying not to waste too much time. The weather was perfect, as you can see. We saw at least to Jay Peak about 70 miles away. I thought maybe Mt. Marcy in the Adirondacks was out west, but I guess it was more likely to be Mansfield. Didn't try to take many good pictures from Cannon, since the summit is overrun with people who took the tram and it makes you want to just get off. :) The picture of Franconia Ridge is the view from North Kinsman, where there is an open ledge looking east (South Kinsman has a more 360-degree view). Cannon is on the left (with the tower on top) and the trail we took follows the ridge coming towards us there. Mt. Lafayette and the Franconia Ridge should be obvious in the right half of the photo. Mt. Washington (I think... maybe it's Mt. Adams) is just peeking over the left shoulder of Lafayette. The lake in the middle of the photo is Lonesome Lake, and there is an AMC hut there that is open year-round (self-service in winter). The photo from the lakeshore shows the view from near the hut, looking up towards Cannon. There is also a great view of Lafayette from there. We were originally going to depart from the Lafayette Campsite and make a loop up Cannon, across the ridge, and back down by the hut. However, the campsite parking areas were totally overflowing with cars (onto the highway) so we went further up to the Cannon Mountain Tramway exit, and took the Kinsman Ridge trail up the NE face of Cannon instead. This was a pretty good plan, but after traversing the ridge (and the 5 or 6 different humps along the way), I didn't want to go backover all those humps again. We went down to the hut and out to the highway, and followed the Pemi Trail back along the highway (yuck) to the tramway. |
That covers 3 out of 4. Just a couple other items coming soon, then we can get down to Hawaii business.
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