I was in a mood for the Lafayette loop on Sunday. I knew the crowds would be out but figured I would get an early start. After a nice suny day on Saturday in the north country and a late night bonfire up in Milan (would have been a fine VFTT event complete with 30 foot flames on occasion), my early start was 7:30 at the trailhead. I parked on the south bound side of the parkway in the hiker lot immediately adjacent to the tunnel. It was cool and damp. I headed up as the forecast was for clearing. I hit the first ridge with viewpoints and I could tell I was near the cloud top, I went a bit farther and the ridgeline popped out with blue sky and sun. While heading to the hut the views got better and it was definitely a very distinct undercast. My summer hiking gear soon became appreciated. I passed a few groups heading up and several groups heading down from the hut. They had been above the cloud deck for most of the night and apparently got to see a nice transit of the space station. The hut was warm and the crew has cinnamon rolls and ginger bread out for sale. I took a quick break at the hut and then headed to the summit. As I hiked up the undercast was rising. Cannon Mtn soon disappeared and the undercast stabilized around 4000 feet. There were several hut groups ahead of me and at the summit there were several folks backpacking through having spent the night at Liberty. No one reported being cited for using the campsite which apparently was full with several groups sharing platforms.
At the summit the predominant language switched to French. Owls head started to disappear and Flume and Liberty were now islands in the clouds. There were no real views to the west past the whites. As I headed south along FRT, the number of hikers heading the opposite direction started to increase. A general observation was that the Canadian groups rarely if ever yield the right of way while English speakers tended to be far more reasonable. Heading down Lincoln, I hit the full bore of the CCW loop hikers. It was challenge to keep a good pace as the groups were getting larger and respecting the screed in path meant one way traffic in many spots. Haystack was busy. I took a break and then headed down Haystack via FWT. It appeared as though a couple of busloads of Canadians had been dropped off at the base as it was steady Canadian hikers all the way down to the Shining Rock spur, where it then spread out. The must have Canadian hiker gear this year appears to be neon shoelaces with shoes with neon soles. Some where between Haystack and Shining Rocks spur I dropped below the cloud deck and cooled off considerably. The rest of the hike down was uneventful although the trail was slick and wet leaves didn't help. I ran into several totally underequipped ethnic groups but it appears they were intent on heading up. I did get asked questions by a few poorly equipped couples and I found that then asked them if they had headlamps for the walk down in the dark seemed to be most enlightening to them.
I got down the parking lot at around 1:45PM. The lots as expected were maxed out and the sides of the parkway were lined with cars in both directions. I was southbound on the parkway so had to do the U turn at the south end. Even at the North bound Basin parking the cars were parked along the road and when I made the U turn to go north , I could look south and see a long line of cars parked along the side of the road which most likely was overflow for Lincoln. Once I hit the interstate north of the notch it was blue sky all the way back to Gorham and in general it looked like the undercast was breaking up southe of twin mountain but Washington and the Northern Presis were still in the clouds.
At the summit the predominant language switched to French. Owls head started to disappear and Flume and Liberty were now islands in the clouds. There were no real views to the west past the whites. As I headed south along FRT, the number of hikers heading the opposite direction started to increase. A general observation was that the Canadian groups rarely if ever yield the right of way while English speakers tended to be far more reasonable. Heading down Lincoln, I hit the full bore of the CCW loop hikers. It was challenge to keep a good pace as the groups were getting larger and respecting the screed in path meant one way traffic in many spots. Haystack was busy. I took a break and then headed down Haystack via FWT. It appeared as though a couple of busloads of Canadians had been dropped off at the base as it was steady Canadian hikers all the way down to the Shining Rock spur, where it then spread out. The must have Canadian hiker gear this year appears to be neon shoelaces with shoes with neon soles. Some where between Haystack and Shining Rocks spur I dropped below the cloud deck and cooled off considerably. The rest of the hike down was uneventful although the trail was slick and wet leaves didn't help. I ran into several totally underequipped ethnic groups but it appears they were intent on heading up. I did get asked questions by a few poorly equipped couples and I found that then asked them if they had headlamps for the walk down in the dark seemed to be most enlightening to them.
I got down the parking lot at around 1:45PM. The lots as expected were maxed out and the sides of the parkway were lined with cars in both directions. I was southbound on the parkway so had to do the U turn at the south end. Even at the North bound Basin parking the cars were parked along the road and when I made the U turn to go north , I could look south and see a long line of cars parked along the side of the road which most likely was overflow for Lincoln. Once I hit the interstate north of the notch it was blue sky all the way back to Gorham and in general it looked like the undercast was breaking up southe of twin mountain but Washington and the Northern Presis were still in the clouds.
