NH_Mtn_Hiker
New member
Just after 7am Bob & Geri, 7summits, Abster, Dave Metski, and myself started up the Skookumchuck Trail. When we reached the Garfield Ridge Trail we banged a right turn and made our way over North Lafayette, Lafayette, and then proceeded down the Franconia Ridge Trail to North Lincoln. You can read Dave's trip report about it here. At this point 7summits and I had had enough of the the other four so we ditched them and headed down the Lincoln Slide. 
I invited Abster to go with us because she had the biggest and heaviest pack...she even had a headlamp! She'd also been acting pretty silly all morning and I thought I might sucker her in to joining us so we could take her gear if we needed it. She said no though, apparently she's not THAT silly. I felt we were adequately prepared even so, as I had a waist pack with a fleece jacket and a couple of bandaids and 7summits had her cellphone in her purse.
We rock hopped east from North Lincoln down the ridge then took the easy herd path through the krumholtz to the top of the slide. Then we tumbled down the slide stopping for water at the spring near the bottom, and where the slide starts to turn into a brook we made our way up the bank and into the woods. A short ways in we found a moose herd path which we followed to within 50 yds of Lincoln Brook with only about a dozen blowdowns along the way. As we approached the brook we turned northward and hiked through open woods to the Lincoln Brook Trail just north of where it crosses the Lincoln Brook.
Once on the well maintained (NOT!) Lincoln Brook Trail, we headed north over the height-of-land, where there was almost no mud . As we are both very experienced hikers we had no trouble following the trail through here. (I'm Lying!) When we reached the Franconia Brook Trail at 13 Falls we headed south and at 3:40 pm somewhere between Twin Brook and Redrock Brook we turned left onto the Redrock railroad grade.
As we only had about 4 hours of light left in the day I set a quicker than usual pace up through Redrock Ravine. To my surprise, every time I looked back, 7summits (whose not big on bushwhacking) was right behind me. We arrived at the base of the talus slide in about 1 hr 45 min. Continuing up the slide, it was clear 7summits was a little uneasy on the loose talus, but she maintained the smile she'd been wearing most of the day and we reached the West Bond Spur in under 3 hours. We then scurried up to the summit for more of the fantastic weather and great views we enjoyed all day.
On the summit we ate and rested our aching legs, feet, ankles, thighs, etc. Sometime around 7pm, 12 hours after the hike had started, we headed east on the spur trail towards Bond and Bondcliff. We had 11.3 miles of trail between us and my car at Lincoln-Woods. The sun set as we neared North Bond and on the backside of Bondcliff our headlamps went on. The trek down form Bondcliff was one long slog. We arrived at L-W at about 12:30am. It felt sooo good to get those boots off.
...and to think, we had originally planned to do something easier, a Pemi Loop.
About 26 miles total including about 5 miles of bushwhacking. Elevation gain about 7,150'.
Pics are here.
I invited Abster to go with us because she had the biggest and heaviest pack...she even had a headlamp! She'd also been acting pretty silly all morning and I thought I might sucker her in to joining us so we could take her gear if we needed it. She said no though, apparently she's not THAT silly. I felt we were adequately prepared even so, as I had a waist pack with a fleece jacket and a couple of bandaids and 7summits had her cellphone in her purse. We rock hopped east from North Lincoln down the ridge then took the easy herd path through the krumholtz to the top of the slide. Then we tumbled down the slide stopping for water at the spring near the bottom, and where the slide starts to turn into a brook we made our way up the bank and into the woods. A short ways in we found a moose herd path which we followed to within 50 yds of Lincoln Brook with only about a dozen blowdowns along the way. As we approached the brook we turned northward and hiked through open woods to the Lincoln Brook Trail just north of where it crosses the Lincoln Brook.
Once on the well maintained (NOT!) Lincoln Brook Trail, we headed north over the height-of-land, where there was almost no mud . As we are both very experienced hikers we had no trouble following the trail through here. (I'm Lying!) When we reached the Franconia Brook Trail at 13 Falls we headed south and at 3:40 pm somewhere between Twin Brook and Redrock Brook we turned left onto the Redrock railroad grade.
As we only had about 4 hours of light left in the day I set a quicker than usual pace up through Redrock Ravine. To my surprise, every time I looked back, 7summits (whose not big on bushwhacking) was right behind me. We arrived at the base of the talus slide in about 1 hr 45 min. Continuing up the slide, it was clear 7summits was a little uneasy on the loose talus, but she maintained the smile she'd been wearing most of the day and we reached the West Bond Spur in under 3 hours. We then scurried up to the summit for more of the fantastic weather and great views we enjoyed all day.
On the summit we ate and rested our aching legs, feet, ankles, thighs, etc. Sometime around 7pm, 12 hours after the hike had started, we headed east on the spur trail towards Bond and Bondcliff. We had 11.3 miles of trail between us and my car at Lincoln-Woods. The sun set as we neared North Bond and on the backside of Bondcliff our headlamps went on. The trek down form Bondcliff was one long slog. We arrived at L-W at about 12:30am. It felt sooo good to get those boots off.
...and to think, we had originally planned to do something easier, a Pemi Loop.
About 26 miles total including about 5 miles of bushwhacking. Elevation gain about 7,150'.
Pics are here.
