Franconia

Having a taste to revisit the White Mountains after our Presidential Traverse and also wanting to get in another training hike before our Yosemite trip, we headed out to Franconia Notch State Park for the weekend. We had been to the area before in Fall 2008, but this time we had our eyes set on summiting Mt. Lafayette. We headed out with Dan and Laura on Friday night and were lucky to get one of the last remaining campsites in the White Mountain National Forest. With wonderfully cool weather we headed out on the 9.0 mile loop hike. It was a scenic climb up the falling waters trail past 3 major waterfalls. We made a short side trip out to Shinning Rock before summiting Little Haystack, Mt Lincoln, and Mt Lafayette. We followed the Old Bridle Path down from Mt Lafayette and made a quick stop at Greenleaf Hut. In all the trip climbed 3,500 feet in elevation and took close to 8 hours to complete. We also toured the nearby Basin before heading back to our campsite for dinner. You can check out pics of our outing here.