Hiked by: Tim and Valerie on July 2, 2007 - via Liberty Trail
Conditions: Driving to the trailhead, we got a good look at the day's objective.
When we arrived at the parking lot, the mosquitoes were on us in just seconds. This didn't bode well for the trip, but we DEET'ed up and headed out. After a few minutes of walking, the mosquitoes subsided somewhat. We weren't really bothered by bugs for the rest of the day (until we were just a few yards from the parking lot on the return trip). The wind on the mountain was strong enough to keep them away.
We had a nice woods walk up the Liberty Trail to the Jim Liberty cabin (about 3.2 miles). To this point, there were not many views, but we did have one really freaky encounter with a mama Ruffed Grouse. She basically threw herself at us in the trail, then flew off to the left to try to distract us from her nest of babies to the right. We joked for the rest of the walk about the new documentary we would make - "When Partridges Attack".
From this point forward (last 0.5 miles), it was all views. As you can see from the picture of the mountain, the summit of Mt Chocorua is very rocky with ledges. Valerie had some hand-over-hand climbing, while Tim's more comfortable to walk right up the rock-face. The visibility was incredible and it was a great day for spying other mountains.
On the walk back down, we came across 5 garter snakes in a very small area. Not sure what was up with that. Several of them were so close together on the trail that you had to watch where you walked.
We made good time and were back at the car by 2:05PM.