The Franconia Range and Pemi Loop is in my opinion the best hiking in the Northeast, and I’ve been itching to get back to the area after a few years away. Between Christmas and New Year’s a few months back I wanted to plan a trip, but refrained from texting friends until mid-January.
Adult life is busy, and only two of my friends were able to make the trip along. After I reconnected with Forrest last month, I invited him along as well, and an unexpected change in his plans made the long weekend fit perfectly for him. Mike had to drop out last minute, so our final group ended up being myself, Colin, and Forrest.
Forrest stayed at my place in Springfield the night before an early drive up to Lincoln where we met Colin who had traveled in directly from Boston. With no reason to delay, we took off from the Lincoln Woods Visitor Center in the direction of our first night’s lodging.
As we got our legs under us, we were treated to some truly spectacular views with the knowledge that these peaks were only an appetizer to what lay ahead on the following day.
We met a corgi named Mango that allegedly hiked up with little assistance from its owner. Whenever I’m out adventuring I offer to take photos of hikers to send to them afterwards which I normally don’t post, but I can’t resist including Mango below. When I sent her the photo, Mango’s owner said that this was her first time hiking a 4000 footer and will be framing the photo, which I took as a huge compliment.
The Pemi Loop is essentially a big cereal bowl of steep mountains; once you’re up at elevation you follow a ridge up mountains and down into intermediary saddles. There are varying distances and grades between the discrete peaks, but the hardest part of hiking the loop is getting up into the clouds. As such, this first day was short and steep, cresting Mt. Flume and Mt. Liberty before descending a side trail towards the Liberty Springs Tentsite.
We set up camp and had dinner, shockingly awesome Crème Brûlée courtesy of Colin, great conversation with the manager of MIT’s nuclear lab, and a joint among friends to cap off a great day in the woods. With an alarm set for 11:00pm, we watched the sun set in silence before crawling into our tents… well, I was in a tent, and Colin and Forrest were in a hammock and wild homemade Tyvek creation, respectively (both psychos, for the record).
You’re correct that 11:00pm is not morning – with absolutely no light polution, a clear forecast, no moon, and sleeping so close to the top of a bare mountaintop, I wanted to try out astrophotography for the first time. Hiking with my Sony a6700 paired with the Sigma 18-55mm f2.8, I definitely didn’t have the right camera for the job, but wanted to try regardless!
Forrest and I crawled out of our tents, and I was instantly overwhelmed by how many stars I could see through the trees. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many stars in my life, and the best was yet to come. We quietly strapped on headlamps, grabbed my travel tripod, and started up the steep ascent towards the top of Mt. Liberty in the pitch black. We were both grateful to not have full packs on, but in the back of my mind I was already not looking forward to repeating the steep ascent in the morning.
We arrived at Mt. Liberty and turned off headlamps. As our eyes adjusted, more and more stars came into view – first a few dozen, then hundreds, then many thousands. I felt like I could see every single star in existence in numbers far higher than I anticipated.
After soaking in every individual bit of light, I set up my camera. Once my camera was on the tripod, I couldn’t find my lens cap anywhere in the darkness, but figured it must be buried in some pocket. It was only about 40℉ and I was wearing five layers, so I would just locate the lens cap in the morning or worst case scenario replace it after the trip.
I set up the camera with a really slow shutter speed and couldn’t see anything on the viewfinder, but wasn’t surprised because the exposure was set to be so long. I pressed the button, waited half a minute for the photo to take and the same length again for the camera to process the image, and then… Nothing. A black screen. Was my ISO set too low? I cranked it and tried again, with the same result.
This continued for a bit over ten minutes (with each single test shot taking a full minute), before I found the lens cap, which was still attached to the lens. I removed it and took a photo, and was met with galaxies and northern lights and colors I didn’t know existed in the night sky.
It took a few shots to dial in focus best I could, and then I was able to get some truly spectacular shots. The cropped sensor and f2.8 lens limited me to shooting at 25s shutter / 2000 ISO and I know these are far from perfect or professional, but I’m still really proud of the shots I was able to capture. Extracting these images was magical and intoxicating. I will absolutely shoot the stars again, hopefully with the right equipment for the task and more knowledge.
We made it back to our tents (being generous here using the word in reference to Forrest’s MYOG creation) around 1:00 and I dozed until my hard wired 5:30. I got up and had breakfast and coffee with a couple other backpackers and was joined by my comrades a short while later. We got moving touch later than I was hoping around 8:30, but I reminded myself: this is our vacation, and it’s supposed to be fun.
Our day began with the punishingly steep hike back up to the main loop, which was only three-tenths of a mile long but gained nearly 500 feet and was pretty tough with no lead-in. Forrest and Colin chatted about Russian literature as I drove us forward. We hiked along a rare relatively flat section for a bit before starting our ascent up to the section of trail that was the centerpiece of our weekend.
When I planned this trip I specifically wanted to revisit hiking Little Haystack to Mt. Lincoln to Mt. Lafayette, which I’ve backpacked or day hiked four or five times in the past, dating back to high school. I think this is the single greatest section of trail I’ve ever hiked. The very end of the climb up to Little Haystack gets you into the alpine zone, and then from there the trail only heads uphill between peaks.
We walked along the knife’s edge ridge from Little Haystack to Lincoln and then on to Lafayette, the trail ascending in front of us and unreal 270º views to either side and behind us. Photos of this section of trail are spectacular but don’t come close to giving the experience its due. Whether you’re day hiking this section of trail or it’s part of a larger backpacking trip, you have to work hard to get here, but the payoff is beyond worth the invested energy.
After a well deserved break on Lafayette, we began a steep descent down the mountain in the direction of Mt. Garfield, which felt forever away. Before we left the peak I had floated the idea of pivoting and doing a half loop instead of the full Pemi we had planned, which takes you through the heart of the wilderness in the middle of the circular ridge rather than following it all the way around. As we creeped towards Garfield, we made the call to change our plans.
This new route was absolutely the right call, even if it made me feel guilty to be the person to pull the plug. We were behind schedule for the day and hiking in the dark and cold on rough trails is not only unsafe but also not exactly fun when you’re wiped and carrying a heavy pack. Remember, it’s supposed to be fun.
After crossing Garfield we deviated from our previously planned route and turned onto the trail that would take us off of the Pemi Loop and into the heart of the Pemi Wilderness. The descent was steep, but increased tree cover and soil made it much quicker than anything we had done yet. We placed bets on when we would arrive at camp and Forrest won by a dozen minutes with his under-6:45 bet.
The first time I hiked in the area was on a backpacking trip during high school, and the new route aligned our entire weekend with that trip exactly. I remembered the Thirteen Falls Tentsite being really stunning, and it didn’t disappoint.
We set up camp and took a chilly dip in the river, which surprisingly wasn’t as cold as we expected it to be. Note to self: the caretaker told us there was great swimming down and to the left, but we found out the next day we hadn’t gone far enough down the trail to find the spot you can actually swim in. We were really only in it for a quick cold plunge anyway, so it didn’t matter much to us this time.
After drying off and eating dinner, we went to sleep with alarms set again for a date with the night sky. We were sleeping at a much lower elevation but the river was wide enough to allow for unencumbered views. Once again, Forrest and I woke up and followed the light from our headlamps down the trail and to the river, luckily a much shorter and easier hike this time.
We immediately lost all sense of time as we lay staring up at an innumerable amount of stars, surrounded on all sides by the sound of rushing water. Somewhere around a half hour later, I set up the camera and grabbed some photos, this time taking off the lens cap before taking the first shot. Again, the experience of capturing a tenth of what I felt was unmatched (although I think the photos came out much better the first night).
On our third and final morning together I woke up a bit before Forrest and Colin and realized I had a fair amount of coffee beans left to go with my camping grinder and espresso machine, and Thirteen Falls Café was born. One of my favorite things in the world is sharing good coffee with good people, and I made five or six double espressos and americanos for our friendly neighbors. One of the people I served worked as a barista at a hip café for a decade and told me it was as good as any coffee he ever made – the reviews are in, folks, and they are positive! In absolutely no rush and with high spirits, we explored the waterfalls a bit before moving towards our initial starting point.
At Thirteen Falls Café some people told us our hike out was shockingly rough given the terrain and lack of elevation gain due to some rough river crossings, so we went in prepared for the worst but ending up having a blast. Each of the river crossings was unique, with the highlights being one terrifying leap of faith and a log that you had to slide across on your ass, dodging the branch remnants that stuck out. Both of these were made considerably harder by full packs, but that’s part of the fun!
The last remaining bit of hiking felt celebratory and was mercifully easy on our tired legs. This weekend wasn’t exactly what I expected – my stated goal was to hike the full Pemi Loop for the first time in my life, but what I ended up getting was so much more meaningful and impactful. Just another reminder that sometimes what I want isn’t what I need.
In archiving this weekend I wrote a lot about what we did but not much about what was said or how we felt, and I don’t think any words could capture all of that adequately. This weekend was really special and I was grateful to spend it with such good company. I live a good life – sometimes things get challenging or disheartening, but it’s weekends like this that charge my battery and get me through the monotony. Thank you, Colin and Forrest, for making my life fuller.