The Kinsmans

Saturday August, 17 2012,

I had an awesome hike today for many reasons. First, I hiked with a friend who, through some nagging injuries over the years, thought his hiking days were over. Second, the weather forecast all week had been for rain and it turned out to be an awesome day. These were also my 45th and 46th peaks so I now have only two left.
Larry picked me up at 5:00 AM. I let him pick the departure time, thinking he’d say 6 or so. Turns out, an early start was a good plan. We drove to Franconia Notch with one pit stop at the Beaver Brook Rest area on Rt. 3. Parking at the Lafayette Place parking lot we got ready for our hike, donning hikers and checking our pack one last time to make sure we had everything. We were on trail a few minutes after 7:00 and as we walked up through the adjoining campground, I suddenly realized I was talking way too loud for this early in the morning, (sorry folks). I stopped yakking and we silently hiked on until we were out of earshot.

 I hiked the first part of the trail to Lonesome Lake, last winter when I climbed Cannon Mountain with Chris so I knew what to expect as far as the lake. We got the lake around 8:00 and from the hut on the other side, we could hear people getting their day started.

Lonesome Lake

We quickly covered the last section to the hut and sat on the porch for our first short break of the day.
Lonesome Lake Hut is about a mile and a half from Lafayette Place Campground. The trail climbs a ridge with moderate grades and easily descends the last few hundred yards to the lake. It then follows the contour of the shoreline on bog bridges for another 4 tenths of a mile.

Cannon Mountain

 The short hike and  easy to moderate grades, make it a great place for young families to bring small children and get them acquainted with hiking and the outdoors. There is also a place for the kids to swim.

Kinsman Pond Shelter

We pushed on to the next trail which is the Fishin’ Jimmy Trail, so named for a local character who once frequented the area. I have heard people complain about the PUDs (pointless ups and downs) on this trail but on the way up I didn’t notice too much.

Fishin' Jimmy Trail

We covered the 2.1 miles to Kinsman pond in about an hour and a half an took a longer break there.
We checked out the new shelter and ran into the caretaker who seemed a bit anti-social compared to most of the other folks employed by the AMC. Perhaps she was just having a bad day. We had a snack by the edge of Kinsman pond, beautifully situated under the ledges that make up North Kinsman’s East side.

We headed up the last push to the summits. North Kinsman first, arriving there about 11:30. On the way up, we met three AT thru hikers. I think they must have stayed at Eliza Brook or Beaver Brook shelter the night before.  After a quick photo, we headed over to South Kinsman a bit less than a mile away. While Climbing North Kinsman, a couple of guys we had seen at the pond, passed us. We saw them for a second at that summit before they moved on. We got to the South summit and they were just leaving. We had half an hour with the top all to ourselves. We admired the views which had actually improved through the day. Franconia Ridge, which was previously obscured by clouds came into full view while we watched. We took some photos and then sat for a while and had a well deserved lunch.
We began the five mile hike down to the parking lot, meeting people ascending. We probably met 20 hikers before we got back to Kinsman Pond. From there, the Fishing Jimmy lived up to it’s negative press. The PUDs which had seemed to be no problem on the way up, became agony now that our legs were tired. I just wanted to sit on that porch at Lonesome lake and have a long break. We were still making pretty good time but had slowed to avoid a fall. We did eventually make it to Lonesome Lake hut and took a good break on some steps on the North side of the main lodge. There were lots of kids running around now and I was wishing I’d known places like this existed when my kids were little. I’ll have to think about bringing my granddaughter here in the future.
We continued on our way and met many people on the trail. I continue to be amazed by the range of preparedness of people hiking the Whites. We saw well prepared, fit people, overweight, ill prepared people and everything in between. As we wound down the ridge to Lafayette Place,  the traffic sounds increased and we welcomed the thought of sitting in the Jeep.  We arrived at the parking lot about 3:00.
After a stop at a bookstore in nearby Lincoln, a nice chat with the owner and a new book, we headed to North Conway for dinner.
It was a great day in the mountains.