Cannon

May 23, 2016

Awoke to a beautiful day in Franconia Notch and we decided on a quick hike up Cannon to stretch the legs before the long drive home. Hit the trail at Lafayette campground at 08:30 and immediately started gaining vertical. Marc and I sped ahead, stopping at many of the great lookout ledges to wait up for the girls. Several fun scrambles were encountered along this rugged trail, and in a couple of hours we were at yet another lovely lookout ledge equiped with natural stone benches just below the summit. We spent some time here relaxing in the sunshine and enjoying the view of the Franconia Ridge, prior to climbing the summit tower. We descended down to the gondola station and marvelled at this piece of engineering while chatting with one of the operators. The cafeteria did sell beer on this mountain, but we had already spent too much time to extend the break any further, so we turned to go empty handed. We spent a bit of time debating about which way to go down, finally settling on the north trail, with Marc volunteering to make the extra two mile run back along the valley trail to fetch the car. This route was also quite nice with lots of exposed lookout ledges until we finally hit the steep descent for about two-thousand feet of unrelenting boulders on the steep trail. Marc and I debated the origin of a large swath of cut forest that seemed to run all the way from the bottom to the Old Man site. My theory was that it was used to skid equipment up the mountain for the failed attempt at trying to keep the Old Man from falling off. Maybe the internet will give up the secret of this if I bother to look it up. (Note: I did attempt to look this up but failed to find anything useful). As we approached the bottom, Marc sped ahead to get the car while I hiked with the girls for the rest of the way down. Ice cream was found at the bottom gondola station which we enjoyed on the porch as we waited. Twenty minutes later, Marc arrived and we made the long drive back to Canada after the four hour hike.

Looking down at Lonesome Lake.

Marc, Katharina, and Janet, taking a break on the natural stone benches just before the summit tower.

Looking south through Franconia Notch.

Franconia Ridge.

Climbing the steps of the summit tower.

For $14 we could have descended the easy way. We chose to walk.

Lookout above the Old Man cliff.

A pile of asphalt morraine blocks the path to the trailhead.

[Home] [Main]