Date: 2018-08-07
From: Kinsman Notch

To: Liberty Springs Trailhead
Miles today: 16.3

We got going really early this morning because it's a pretty big day up over the Kinsman's and we had to place a car on Franconia Notch and then head back up to Kinsman Notch to start the hike. We started the climb up out of the notch heading towards Mount Wolf. I had not really seen the fire damage that was done from last year's fire, but it's quite extensive. I can only imagine what they had to deal with on such steep terrain trying to contain it. When you think of this leg of the journey it's easy to forget about Mount Wolf. Both Kinsman's are 4,000 footers, but Mount Wolf is no easy climb to get up and over either.We finally made it up and over Wolf and headed down towards the Eliza Brook Shelter where we decided we'd have lunch. Rather than actually eat at the shelter we decided to eat lunch while we soaked our feet in the stream. After lunch we started up the Kinsman's following a series of falls and cascades which we wish we had more time to enjoy. By the time we arrived at South Kinsman the weather was starting to look kind of threatening, and the climb up South Kinsman as I remembered from past hikes is very steep and rocky. Again the climb had some steep Rocky open areas that Mary wasn't too thrilled with, but she put her head down and didn't look back too much and we kept going. When we were about halfway up the climb of South Kinsman we started to hear the first grumbles and rumbles of thunder. We met another Northbound hiker, Late Start,  just as we reached the summit. Like us she wasn¢t too thrilled to be above treeline in the thunderstorm. We didn't spend much time at the top of South Kinsman as the only view was of the impending storm. We hustled to make it to the summit of North Kinsman as fast as we could. Just as we reached the summit of North Kinsman the storm was fairly close and we could see quite a few flashes of lightning. At one point I decided to take a picture, and it was so dark that the flash on my camera went off and startled Mary, she thought it was lightning. Mary and I and Late Start hustled as fast as we could to try to get down off the summit and down into tree line. It was hard to go too fast as it was quite slippery from the rain and in many places it was steep, flat rock. We finally made it down to Lonesome Lake campsite and I took refuge under the caretakers tent. Talking with Late Start a little more we realized that she had been moving too slowly today to make her shuttle back to her hostel, so we offered her a ride if she was around when we arrived at the parking lot.The storm passed and we began the descent  the rest of the way down the mountains. It's pretty steep terrain down to Lonesome Lake Hut, so it took us some time. The final trail from Lonesome Lake Hut down to the road isn't too bad, but it was getting late in the day so we stuck together with Late Start  for the final couple miles. As we approached 93 it was getting so dark that we needed to put our headlamps on for the last quarter mile to avoid stumbling on the rocks. The one thing we had forgotten about is the trail actually comes out nearly a mile from the Liberty Springs parking lot, so once we arrived on the bike trail we had to hoof it nearly a mile down the bike trail to our car. It was quite late now and none of us had eaten so we ended up shuttling Late Start over to McDonald's before we dropped her off at the Notch Hostel. By the time we went back up to Kinsman Notch to retrieve our truck we realized most of the restaurants were closed, so we too ended up going to McDonalds to grab a quick bite for the ride home. Today was a real tough day and tomorrow will be Franconia Ridge and we won't be able to slack pack ourselves, so we may zero before we tackle it.