After a fantastic four day adventure on a route commonly known as the Pemi-Loop Sheri and Randy Propster have a better understanding than ever as to why New Hampshire is known as the Granite State and these amazing mountains are known as The Whites…

The Propsters couldn’t resist the powerful pull of the wilderness during their Get Out More Tour visit to New Hampshire.

The foliage of a New England Fall was in full effect. Golden yellows, rustic oranges and brilliant reds blanketed the River Valley that houses the Pemigewasset River as it flows through the Pemigewasset Wilderness.

The Columbus Day holiday weekend was coming to a close and the “leaf peepers” (tourist drawn to the Northeast each Fall to enjoy the colorful display of nature) were thinning out. Not that we were ever really worried that the route we were attempting would be crowded, all of our research supported the fact that this combination of trails was going to be a serious challenge, for even the most experienced of backpackers.

The trail-head at the Lincoln Woods Visitors Center was full of cars and the Lincoln Woods Trail, a flat few miles along the Pemigewasset River, was full of day hikers out enjoying the changing of the seasons.

Our desire and search for solitude didn’t take long though and after a turn on to the Osseo Trail and the start of a rather significant elevation change we had the wilderness to ourselves.

The Osseo Trail led us up and up and up, eventually reaching Mt. Flume and the connection with the Franconia Ridge Trail. We had backpacked the Franconia Ridge Trail as part of our Appalachian Trail thru-hike and this place on the planet is very, very special.

If you can, please make a visit. If you visit, you will be back. If you get back, you may never want to leave again.

  The backpacking through this Alpine and Ridge-line environment is truly breathtaking.

 The trail conditions forecast had warned us that the high summits, including the mile high summit of Mt. Lafayette that we would be backpacking over on it’s unforgiving exposed ridge, were expected to see winds with gusts as hard as 60 to 80 miles per hour and temperatures between negative five and five degrees.

Those delightful sounding conditions were in addition to the wet weather system that was approaching the area, so needless to say snow was a realistic threat.

The awe inspiring ridge-line trails of Franconia Ridge and Garfield Ridge had already reinforced the logic behind New Hampshire’s nickname, the ”Granite State” and when we opened the door of our tent on day three of our adventure this beautiful terrain known as the “White Mountains” decided to show its true colors as well.

  Four inches of snow was going to make the rocky route from Garfield to Guyot up and over South Twin just the challenge we had hoped and prepared for during our pre-trip planning.

Our conversations before diving into our sleeping bags for the night and our first thoughts as we packed up our Guyot camp were focused on the hope that we would arrive to Bondcliff with clearing skies.

 

Bondcliff stands high above the Pemigewasset Wilderness with 360 degree views overlooking many of New Hampshires most famous peaks, from Lincoln to Garfield to Washington.

The view from Bondcliff is debatably one of the best New Hampshire has to offer.

  As the wind whipped we took careful steps toward the rocky summit and as we reached the edge of this unbelievable pile of granite the colors from the valley floor appeared to be reaching for the sky through the beams of light that were breaking through the quickly moving silver lined clouds.

Regardless of the conditions, this is a place on earth where you simply want to stand still, take deep breaths, embrace the calm and take it all in for as long as you possibly can.

  From Boncliff the trail drops back below the Alpine Zone and you find yourself quickly swallowed by the wilderness you just moments ago were standing high above.

As we reached the banks of the Pemigewasset River and completed our route on the Pemi-Loop we gave thanks to the Granite State and the White Mountains for once again showing us why they truly are one of our favorite places on the planet.

We will be back!  (Please check out our SPOT Adventure of the Pemi-Loop)

See You Outside,

Sheri and Randy Propster

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Advice From the Experts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.