Tangential Adventures

Hiked on Friday, June 18, 2010.  Co-written by Steve and Jocelyn.

The weather forecast suggested that Friday would be a beautiful day, if a bit warm, so we woke up early and headed up to the White Mountains, with a quick stop to get lunch and snacks on our way.

Despite the beautiful day, there were only a few other cars parked in the lot for Lafayette… notably a bus from a Christian group, and a van from Franklin Tech.

Given the drive and the stop for groceries we were off to a bit of a late start, hitting the trail at around 11:30, the advantage of this late start was that we were pretty effectively staggered from the few other hikers, so we had the trail to ourselves. We took the Old Bridle Path for the ascent and stopped for lunch at a small outlook a little under 2 miles into the hike. As is so often the case, the great views started right around the bend from where we stopped for lunch.   Gorgeous views of Lafayette as well as the rest of ridge we were about to hike across inspired our ascent. This inspiration was pretty important, as was the occasional breeze because it was definitely feeling very warm.

We finally made it to the hut, where we enjoyed some lemonade and a quick snack.   A particularly annoying and boorish dad and his family group spurred us on towards the final ascent.  On our way up, we found a nice spot in the shade under the 4 foot conifers, just off the trail.   The dense cover offered some protection from the sun and allowed us to scare passersby, because they couldn’t see or hear us until they were even with us, if they noticed us at all.

Our ascent was leisurely, with frequent resting at cairns to enjoy the view and stay hydrated.  We ran across a large group of backpackers that couldn’t have been the Christian group, as they stated, “it’s one hell of a day!”  At one of our rest spots near the top, we spied a glider, sweeping and swooping through the sky.

Once we finally reached the summit, we found a somewhat isolated spot to rest for our second lunch.  After eating and relaxing for a bit, we realized it was around 4PM, and decided to brave the ridge and descent, despite the risk of finishing after dark.  Being right around midsummer, we figured we had a fair chance of getting out in the light, though.

The ridge hike was gorgeous, presenting us with excellent views.  Unfortunately, the lack of a key piece of signage was frustrating, but we found our way.  Once across the ridge, we made our descent via the Falling Waters trail, which was very steep and rocky at first, but it eventually gave way to a more gradual descent and provided us what seemed like a dozen opportunities to cross the running water and view the water falls.

We did manage to get ourselves out of the woods before dark, and hit the road looking for some dinner.  All in all, a stout day hike with some gorgeous views!

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	532 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	568 m	8.717 mi	8h 43m 39s	8h 43m 25s	1.00 mph	1.00 mph	70.48 mph	4236 ft	4114 ft
Summary			8.717 mi	8h 43m 39s	8h 43m 25s	1.00 mph	1.00 mph	70.48 mph	4236 ft	4114 ft

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