Date: 2005-08-26
From: Franconia Notch

To: Garfield Ridge Campsite
Miles today: 10.3
Weather: broken clouds

6:00 AM and we were all up, packing, eating breakfast, and talking. Today was the big day, Franconia Ridge, Mt. Lincoln, Mt. Lafayette, and Mt. Garfield. The weather looked like it was going to be excellent! We were on the trail by 7:00. Normally everyone hikes at a different pace or one or two of us will hike together for awhile. Today we pretty much kept together because we wanted to go across the ridge as a group. Before we got the ridge we had to make a climb, a 3000 foot climb. I have been trying to figure out a way to convey how these climbs are to readers of the journal. The best I can come up with is for you to try and picture a staircase. A staircase covered with rocks, boulders, and roots and varies in the degree of steepness. Picture yourself climbing this staircase for anywhere from 1.5 hours to 4 hours at a time, depending on the distance. Sometimes hand climbimg over the rocks, the boulders, and other obstacles that are in the way. This might give you an idea of what we face on these climbs. We got to the top of the hill where we took a break before making our way along the ridgeline. The guide said most of the ridge was above treeline and that is what we've been waiting for. I can't say enough about how perfect the weather is today! If we had not lain up at Eliza Brook we would have made this walk yesterday, in cloudy weather. We made it above treeline and everyone of us just stopped and stared. It was incredible! The views were majestic and the sun beat down on us. There were very few clouds in the sky. We were as giddy as little kids after eating a batch of cotton candy while we made our way to the top of Mt. Lincoln where we stopped for lunch. We stayed there for a long time, drinking in the view, and soaking up the sun. Off in the distance we could see Mt. Washington, still two days away, and the highest point on the trail in the Whites. Eventually we had to move on, though we sure weren't in a hurry. If we never get another view for the rest of the Whites we will be content for what we had today. Imagine, if you will, a pathway between a lot of rocks. Look to the left or right and the ground is covered with grasses and very low shrubs. The landscape drops off quickly and the eye hits treeline. The trees here are short, conifer type trees, but as you move down they become larger until they turn into decidious type trees. The eye then sweeps out to a vast expanse of tree covered slopes for as far as the eye can see only to, once again, see the peaks of other mountains in the distance. As your sight sweeps up you see a sky so blue it almost hurts the eyes, with small puffy clouds drifting in the thermals. That is the best I can do to describe the scene and it is poor at best. We moved slowly, climbing Lafayette, still above treeline. In the sky above us a glider was drifting with the wind. As it cae over us we could hear the wind rushing over the wings. The walk from Lincoln to Lafayette was a mile and it was more of what we had experienced on the way to Lincoln. All of us were snapping pictures like crazy! When we got to the top of Lafayette we took another break. This one was not as long because we still had some distance to cover and it was getting toward mid afternoon. From the top of Lafayette we began our descent. On the way down we ran into T-Tree. She was working one of the huts and was a past thru-hiker. She had also done the PCT so we talked about that for awhile. We finally ended our conversation with her, not because we wanted to but because of the time. The climb for the day was not over because we still had Mt. Garfield to climb which we began shortly after descending Mt. Lafayette. The view from the top of Garfield was just as spectacular as the previous ones. We could see where we had been earlier in the day. We contemplated camping there but it was illegal and we didn't have enough water with us so we moved on to the Garfield Ridge Campsite. We ran into Dragonfly, a thru hiker from last year, when we got there. He is the caretaker for the area and we sat and talked to him for a bit before we got a tent platform. We were going to cowboy it so we only needed one platform for the five of us. We put out the sleeping bags out, ate and crawled into the sleeping bags early. It was clear and going to get a little cold. All in all it was a perfect day. I think Gypsy, Touk, Tink, and Mouth would agree.