Mt. Lincoln

I headed up to New Hampshire this past weekend with my buddy Mike to knock another 4000 footer off the list (in this case 5089ft and number 7 on the list) Mount Lincoln, named for the president best known for killing vampires and recycling napkins. We headed up Friday night and camped at Lafayette Place Campground, easily the best campground in the area with an added bonus of being the starting point for most of the major trails heading up the Franconia range. There website is located here and prices are reasonable, even more so off season when paying is based on the honor system, and of course we payed the full amount....After a night of entertaining local cougars at the Woodstock Inn we settled in to get an early start on Saturday. One of us camped, the other slept in a car, I'll let you figure out who did what. We started up the Falling Waters Trail the next morning at around 9:45am which follows Dry Brook for a bit, taking you past Stairs Falls, Swiftwater Falls (60 feet), and Cloudland Falls (80 feet). There was a huge downed tree  laying across the river about 20 feet up off the ground which you can cross as part of the trail, if you can stomach it, which we did. Sorry to Mike's mom if she's reading this, but I will spare you by not posting those pictures.
After a bit the trail strays away from the brook and spends the last roughly 2 miles traveling uphill to the top of Little Haystack Mountain (4760ft) where the trail then follows the ridge line for another 0.7 miles to the summit of Mt. Lincoln (5089ft) and from there you can head roughly another 0.9 miles to the summit of Mt. Lafayette (5260ft) but as followers of the blog already know, I summited Mt. Lafayette last summer with a group of friends including Mike so we didn't need to continue on to it today. It is important to note that the majority of this hike, while starting off in sunny, mid 60 degree temperatures, was spend trudging though multiple feet of snow and ice, leading to a culmination at the summit where the ridge was still covered by over 3 feet of snow in some places. After a lunch break on Little Haystack and plenty of time to soak in the view on the way to and on the summit of Lincoln, we headed back on the same trail across the ridge and down Little Haystack. Some shitbag warned us that it was a bad idea to go back down that way due to the snow and ice, telling us that we better have told someone where we were that day just in case. He was kind of right, but a shit bag none the less. So after a grueling almost 3 hours down the mountain, including slamming my hip and ass multiple times on rocks and ripping my hand open on the same obstacle that I tore my pants open on the way up, we finally made it back to the car safe-ish. After changing and recovering for a minute, we drove back to the Boston area and ended another successful trip and I passed out in literally 0.2 seconds that night. Great trip and a respectable 8 miles tacked on the boots. Hold all Eminem jokes.

Mileage: 8 Miles

Cloudland Falls I believe.

Mt. Lincoln from Little Haystack.

Conquerer.

Done did it.

Mt. Washington still trapped in complete winter.

First Ascent.

Pondering.

Triumphant Mike.

Noble View

This past weekend I headed home to the 413 and was able to go on a hike Sunday with my dad and brother,Kendrick, who on a side note joined the Army National Guard last week, so high five to him. We headed up to AMC's Noble View Outdoor Center in Russel, MA. Noble View is essentially a nature retreat run by the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) and features hiking, cross country skiing, snowshoeing, along with having multiple cabins for rent on a nightly and weekly basis for pretty cheap. The weather was a bit colder this weekend than the past few weeks bringing back the reality that summer really isn't here yet. We set out on the trail around 1pm heading towards the ledges view along with Big and Little Pitcher Falls. There are a number of trails winding and intersecting throughout the park, leading to multiple views and points of interest, a trail map can be found here. The trails were marked well, and all points of interest were clearly labeled both on the trail and correspondingly on the map. The route we took was through mostly new forest with a few cellar holes of houses and building  from back when there was a small community of people living in this area. As the trail met up with Pitcher Brook the forest became much older and we could hear the  sounds of waterfalls in the distance. Honestly when you think of a waterfall in the middle of the woods in Massachusetts you don't really picture anything even close to spectacular, or at least I don't due to years of hiking in the area and not seeing much in the way of anything to write home about. Big Pitcher falls is an except, now keep in mind its not Yosemite or Niagara Falls, but for a hole in the wall hiking spot in Western Mass it's pretty damn good. There is a series of smaller falls first which I thought were the main falls but after hiking farther I saw Big Pitcher and I was completely surprised. The falls run off a small cliff into a basin pool carved into a slab of rock and make what seems like a sweet place to swim in the warmer months. A bit upstream was Little Pitcher Falls, which as the name suggests is smaller. After the falls it was a pretty strait, routine hike back to the car, and we finished somewhere around 3pm with a total hike of around 3 miles. Noble View is a good place for an afternoon hike with the option to stay overnight in one of the cabins and make a weekend of it, with plenty of trails to keep you busy for the duration. Check out their website for more information Noble View. 
On a Side note I got a new frame backpack this week, can't wait for some backpacking this summer to tack on the miles!

Mileage: 3 Miles

Big Pitcher Falls.

Big Pitcher Falls again.

Size Comparison.

Yeah Cool Kendrick.