Seven of us OTHH took advantage of a day we found sunny and quite warm, but ahead of the building heat and humidity following, to hike up to Mt Liberty (4459 ft). We gathered at the Liberty Spring Trail parking area just to the north of the huge parking area for the Flume Gorge. Then it was around 3/4 of a mile along the paved but hilly bike path that runs along much of I-93 through Franconia Notch State Park. That was the easy part. Then it was a typical hiking trail for a while, climbing steadily but not too steeply over and around boulders. After crossing a few minor drainage streams and then rock-hopping carefully over the larger last of these, the trail got ever steeper and rockier. This stretch seemed to go on forever, until finally we reached the Liberty Spring tent site, noted for its ongoing bear "incident" problem. Onward and upward perhaps another 1/4 steep and rocky mile, we reached the intersection with the Franconia Ridge trail. It was up here that we saw the sign about the bear issue, while there had been no sign at the tent site (this time). No Yogi for us, so we pressed on and up the last 0.3 mile to the rocky summit, some 3185 ft higher than at the trailhead. The views from there are 360 degrees, looking first north up the ridge to Mt Lincoln, and sweeping around to Mt Garfield, the closer Owls Head long ridge, over to the Twins, east to the three peaks of "The Bonds," south to Mt Carrigain far off, the Loon Mountain ski area to the south, and finally across the notch to the Kinsmans, Lonesome Lake, and finally the easily recognized Cannon Cliff.
Pictured below is our gang of seven, atop Liberty, (L-R) Donna, Ginger, Mary, Michele, Dick, and Pat, with Chris perched on a higher rock behind.
Most of us decided to skip Mt Flume and just head down. Chris and Donna chose to "go the extra mile" (actually 1.2, each way) to bag Mt Flume, then return to Liberty for the descent. This added nearly another 1000 ft of elevation gain and two hours to their day. Below are Donna and Chris atop Flume, with Mt Liberty behind them.
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