Mt Liberty

Although I had been over Mt Liberty on my Pemi Loop attempt last year, I didn't remember too much of it, and Karen needed it for her quest for the 48.. so we headed up to Franconia. We started on the Whitehouse Trail which is a nice, gentle 0.8 miles down to the Pemi River. After crossing the river, the Liberty Spring Trail starts a gentle climb before it goes up, up and up. It's a technical, rocky climb that took just about all I had out of me. I was so focused on trying to preserve my energy, I didn't take any pictures on the ascent at all! The trail was a little wet with quite a bit of mud and slick rocks, but with care there were no issues. A couple miles before reaching the ridge is the Liberty Springs campsite. We didn't go and explore but continued on up to Franconia Ridge Trail. You can see the summit from this point, so that last couple of tenths wasn't too bad. As has been the trend when I hike with Karen unfortunately, it was rather overcast with low cloud, so the views weren't all that great. Just a few peeks here and there as the clouds moved around. Of course once we were down and could see back up, it appeared crystal clear! We stopped and enjoyed a brief snack before heading back down the way we came up. We passed a large group of teenagers that must have been part of a camp group or something as we turned back onto Liberty Spring Trail and I was grateful for our timing as the summit isn't that large and it would have been rather crowded had we all been up there at the same time. The climb back down did me in. I was so grateful to have hiking poles as my quads all but gave out on me and the poles were the only thing keeping me upright! I couldn't even feel my legs by the time I got down. It was very slow going... but we made it and I was never so thankful to see the car! 

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