Mt Flume

Hiked by: Tim and Valerie on July 19, 2008.  Lincoln Woods to Osseo Trail to Franconia Ridge Trail, then back out the same way

Wow.  I'm very late getting this trail report out.  It's been two weeks, and I had a business trip and Seek-the-Peak in between.  I hope I can remember the details.

This is a trail we've wanted to do for a long time, the "back way" up Mt Flume. 

We started on the Lincoln Woods trail.  We've done this part countless times before, but we only needed to stay on it for 1.4 miles before we could split off onto the Osseo Trail.  Oh, and the Lincoln Woods trail is flat as a pancake.  We make better time here than anywhere else in the Whites.

  

The Osseo trail was smooth and relatively flat for quite awhile.  We kept wondering when and how the elevation was going to come.  Our first views of the Pemi Wilderness were hazy but beautiful.

        

THEN the elevation gain came!!  The ladders were excellent!  THANK YOU to the trail maintainers who built these! 

     

We came across this guy just off the trail.

  

Finally, we had a look at our destination.  Wow.  It still seems to be a long way away.  Luckily, after all those ladders (what, 12 flights?) we didn't have too much more elevation to gain.  It was a relatively flat walk across the ridge.

     

We popped out of the woods very near the summit.  The day was dark and the storm clouds were brewing.  At the summit, we spied/heard Boreal Chickadees, Black-and-White Striped Warblers, Blackpoll Warblers and White-Throated Sparrows.  What a beautiful song!  We could see a couple folks over on the summit of Liberty.  We hoped that they were getting off the summit soon, just like we were.

                 

On the way down, we were probably only 10 minutes into the woods when the thunder started rumbling in the distance.  Once the rain started, we took a moment to get our Gore-Tex out of our packs.  While hunched over the packs and digging, a BIG bolt of lightning came awfully close.  (In reality, it was probably all the way over on Owl's Head, but it FELT CLOSER THAN THAT).  Val was pretty much shell-shocked.  We moved quickly.  Thankfully, we had a break in the storm while we made it down the ladders.  They seem very exposed.  We would have waited in the woods at the top of them rather than exposing ourselves at that point.

We made it back to the car without incident.  As we got back onto the Lincoln Woods Trail, we were dismayed as group after group went by us without returning our cheerful "Hello".  These folks were walking the Lincoln Woods trail in the rain and they weren't even enjoying it.    It's not like they HAD to be somewhere.  Why would you walk in the rain if you weren't enjoying yourself????