Hiked by: Tim and Valerie on May 30, 2009 via Crawford Path
When we packed the car and headed out at 7:30AM, it was a gorgeous morning with blue skies all around. As we passed through Franconia Notch, the summits were still clear and the skies were blue. Even up into Twin Mountain, the weather was beautiful. We turned onto Rt 302 and headed towards Crawford Notch. Suddenly low hanging clouds were everywhere - clinging to the peaks we hoped to visit! BOO!
As we started the hike, the sunlight was filtering through the trees and making for a really nice walk. It rained for the last several days here, so the trail was wet but not too muddy. There were many cars in the parking lot, but we had the trail completely to ourselves for the first three miles.
The flowers in the lowlands were beautiful. Trillium and hobblebush and our first trout lilies. Tim saw this little toad/frog!
As we got higher in elevation, the deciduous forest turned to evergreen, but the filtered sunlight and the damp conditions stayed steady. There was a little bit of snow "monorail" left from the winter. Considering all the recent rain, it's amazing that there's any snow left at all.
Mt Pierce had come out of the clouds by the time we got up far enough to have a view. From this viewpoint near the summit of Mt Pierce, we could see down into the valley to the Mount Washington Resort.
We followed the signs towards Mt Washington, but at this point, the clouds still had hold of everything from Mt Eisenhower north. The Crawford Path continued across the ridge and it was a wonderful hike. We've never been on this portion of the trail before, and it was really nice!
Tim spied this very pointed mountain which we think is over in Maine. We have no idea what it is.
The alpine flowers were blooming EVERYWHERE. The pink ones are Alpine Azalea. The bright white ones are Diapensia. The purple ones are Lapland Rosebay. There's one other that looks like Cotton Grass. We were surprised to see that here because we've only seen it near lakes in far northern NH before, but our book says that it can grow in wetland areas in the alpine zone.
The last couple tenths of a mile up Mt Eisenhower were steep and cloudy. Soon, we were at the summit. In one of the pictures below, you can see a pile of logs that were obviously dropped by helicopter at the summit. We saw two other piles just like this along the trail. Tim surmised that someone was intending to put in some wooden steps because there were already a few steps built into the trail along the way. Perhaps that or erosion control. This was about the same view that we had the last time we were on this summit!
Suddenly, the clouds started to break up, and we could see so much to the east and south!
As we returned over the ridge towards Mt Pierce, the scene behind us just kept getting clearer. First, Mt Eisenhower came out of the clouds, then Mt Monroe was visible (in the picture with Tim), then finally, Mt Washington! The pictures of the Observatory were taken from about 5 miles away. Tim is digging the new camera!
Unfortunately, these beautiful views to the north were accompanied by a VERY nasty thunderstorm approaching from the west. Thunder was rumbling every few minutes. So, we could look over our shoulder to see these beautiful mountains behind us, but we seemed to be walking into the darkness as we approached Mt Pierce. We almost jogged to the summit, snapped a couple pictures and then took off almost immediately. We wanted to be below tree line when the bad weather hit.
Once we were safely off the summits and ridges, then the skies opened up and it hailed for a couple minutes. We've never been hiking in a hailstorm before. It wasn't scary, but it was hard to get pictures of it! It accumulated very quickly!
By the time we got about 1.2 miles off the summit, the rain and hail had stopped and the thunder had moved off to the east. Our hike down was soggy and a bit steamy as the sun returned.
Overall, a GREAT day and a GREAT hike! We will do this one (or variations on it) again!