Tuesday June 12, 8.9mi/14.3km

Eliza Brook shelter (1810.1) to Lincoln/Hwy 3 (1819.0) (NH)

It rained hard all thru the night, and I was enjoying being warm and dry in my sleeping bag in the shelter. We got up and out by 6:45am, to meet a friend who was picking us up at a trailhead 9 miles away. Immediately, we got our feet wet in the trail, which was beginning to merge with the nearby stream.

Even the boardwalk sections, which normally sit at least 6in/15cm above the water, were flooded. It must’ve rained a ton last night!

Near the top of the climb up to Kinsman Ridge, there was still some snow hiding in a north facing crevice. Ha!

We continued up the wet climb and reached the summit of South Kinsman at 8am.

Bob is showing off his summit dance!

The next summit of North Kinsman was only a mile away, so we kept moving along the ridge. It wasn’t raining, but we it wasn’t completely dry weather either.

After this summit was a couple miles of descent to Lonesome Lake and the nearby hut. I didn’t get any photos of this, because by this time the screen was too wet to use the camera app. Sadly, I also didn’t get any video of our epic river Ford of a raging cascade creek, or the mama moose sighting just a mile from the trailhead.

My friend Chris picked us up at Liberty Springs trailhead at 11am, and we went to town for groceries and a nice BBQ lunch. It was great catching up with him, and discussing upcoming trips. L2H (Lowest to Highest) is a 130-mile route from Death Valley to Mt Whitney, and looks amazing…. so that might happen!

But tomorrow, we will be hiking the iconic Franconia ridge!