Date: 2015-07-29
From: Kinsman Notch 

To: Franconia Notch 
Miles today: 16.3

We were awakened to the sound of cooking. Roger made us breakfast before he took us back to the trail. He gave each of us the leftover chicken from last evening's meal for our lunch. That was a very nice gesture. We did see two New Hampshire bucks on the way to the trail. Well, we started the day with a climb. Nothing like getting the old heart pumping first thing. No warming up the legs, just climb up. We climbed to Mount Wolf. We went up1600 feet. The climb was through mud, around large puddles and over rocks. It was a tough climb. But, that was just our morning hike. We did take a short break at the bottom of the descent by a stream. It was pleasant to relax a bit.    Soon enough we were climbing again, climbing to South Kinsman. What a climb. It was the hardest climb we have done this far. We were "hiking" (that word is used loosely) through a ravin. We were more like crawling then hiking. The ravin was so steep and the rocks so large, it was easier to just use our hands to climb over the rocks. So, we basically rock climbed, hand over hand to nearly the top of South Kinsman. Finally, the trail became more of a trail and we could actually hike.    The climb to South Kinsman was 2100 feet in 2.5 miles. It took us almost 2 1/2 hours to make this climb. By the time we reached the top, or what we thought was the top, Lavender was in tears and she was spent.    After recovering a bit, we had a quick lunch, our left over chicken, and took in the view. The view was spectacular. The sky was blue and the sun was shining! We could see Mount Lafayette and Mountain Washington. We will be hiking these in a few days.    Then, it was time to hike on. We thought we had reached the top of South Kinsman earlier. But, we really hadn't. We had another .2 miles to hike. The view wasn't any different here. So, we weren't too upset we stopped short of the top for lunch.   We had .9 miles to hike from South Kinsman to North Kinsman. We went down almost 300 feet to climb up almost 300 feet. Someone should have built a bridge across. It would have saved us a down and up. But the trail was easy.    Leaving North Kinsman we had a very steep descent; 1400 feet of very steep descent! Of course there were rocks. As another hiker said "rocks, roots and mud". There has been so much rain, the water has pooled where several rocks form a surrounded area. We dropped another 1400 feet. We had to forge a stream as the bridge had been washed out. After crossing the stream, we had the first nice trail for the day. Actually, the first nice trail for days. And, we enjoyed this trail!   We passed under I-93. Under the bridge by the trail was trail magic. After a tough day, the lukewarm Root beer and Sausalito cookies were appreciated. We had a bit of an issue as we didn't know where Silent Force was. Thankfully, he came back to us. We then found our trail angel, Roger. Yes, we were going back to Roger for the night. He even brought Oreo Cookies, soda and ice tea. He knew I liked ice tea. And, he brought two lawn chairs to sit on. We were so exhausted and so much appreciated his thoughtfulness.   We slowly crawled into Roger's truck. He drove us to his house giving us a driving tour of the local area. We took shower, Lavender also took an Epsom salt bath, while Roger cooked us dinner. We had a relaxing evening. We called it an early night as the three hikers were exhausted