For our anniversary, Kathy thought it would be fun to hike back up to Lonesome Lake Hut, which we last visited in 2006. It's a short hike from the campground parking area off Route 93 in Franconia Notch. Here's a photo of Kathy at the trailhead:
We started hiking around 12:15, passed through the campground, and looked over all the campers getting ready for their July 4 camping adventures. Our trail took us on up above the campground and up the cut formed by a small stream between Cannon Mountain on the North and South Kinsman Mountain on the South. There are one or two bridges, which were perfectly suited to David's tilted personality:
About halfway up, we passed a family of four - a father, mother and their 6-year-old and 4-year-old girls. The 4-year-old was very tired and a little whiny about the climb. We chatted with the parents about how far and hard it may be, and cheered them on. As we left them, we both agreed it was unlikely the little girls would make it.
After about 1.8 miles of uphill climbing, we reached our first view of Lonesome Lake, with the hut just visible on the opposite shore:
The lake is incomparably beautiful, with many unusually shaped fir trees around its shore, and a large, boggy network of feeder streams on its North shore. The photo below, from our later hike around the lake, shows the boggy area with Cannon Mountain in the background:
We arrived not feeling very tired, but due to heat and humidity wanting something cool to drink. The hut croo always has refreshing lemonade and other beverages such as coffee, tea and water ready for visitors. We sat, sipped lemonades, and chatted with Caroline, one of the croo.
After selecting our cabin and lightening our packs, we set out on a 1-mile walk around the lakeshore. There were many interesting little sights, including chipmunks, red-tailed squirrels with the REDDEST tails you'll see, hoof prints of deer or elk - or perhaps even of the moose family that lives on the lake. According to the hut croo, one of them was swimming late one evening and came nose to nose with Big Daddy Moose, who was also bathing in the lake near the hut. Backing off diplomatically, the fellow heard an answering moose call from across the lake and saw what appeared to be a female, with two little calves. Apparently the moose family is very shy and stays in hiding during the day due to the many hiker visitors.
As we crossed the boardwalks through the bog, we encountered little streamlets feeding the lake, and the streamlets were absolutely filled with young trout, anywhere from 1 inch to nearly a foot long! The croo member who is a naturalist later told us that the trout are non-native brook trout that were originally stocked after a New England writer, W.C. Prime, discovered the lake in the 1870's and pulled out (reportedly) 40-some trout that were 39 pounds and more, each! This is unbelievable to modern fishermen. Prime built a cabin along the East shore of the lake some years later and occupied the cabin for many years until the property was deforested for logging in the 1920's and then taken by the State of New Hampshire by eminent domain to preserve it for recreation. At some point, the demand for fishing in the lake caused the state to stock it with brook trout. As we walked around the lake, we were astounded at the number of very active rises by feeding trout, and they looked large. We had seen three fishermen walking down from the lake as we hiked up, and we began to understand why, even today, the lake attracts fishermen.
The C.W. Prime story has more significance, however, because soon after New Hampshire took the property, the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) leased the fishing cabin on the East shore as a hut. Thereafter, the state built an octagonal structure (the present hut) on the West shore, which served as a concession stand for visitors to the lake. The present swimming beach and decks are on the shore just below the octagonal structure. Later, when the state closed the concession stand, AMC switched its hut lease to the newer octagonal building, and the fishing cabin was demolished. Cabins were later added for guests.
Continuing around the lake, we encountered a couple who had arrived at the lake just where we had originally. We snapped their photo and they, in turn, took ours. Here you can see us standing at the junction of the Lonesome Lake Trail, leading up to the lake, the Around-Lonesome-Lake Trail, which we were hiking, and other trails.
We enjoyed the bog and estuary so much we decided to travel back around the lake to the hut the way we had come. We poked around at various points on the shore, including one spot where someone had stretched a plank out to a rock in the water. Here is David struggling mightily to avoid losing his balance and falling in (or is he trying to strike an heroic pose?):
Back from our walk, it was still very warm, and Kathy dove first into the lake's refreshing water:
It wasn't very cold, and we both enjoyed a short swim and cameraderie with other hikers, including some through-hikers, as well as a group of 5 hikers, including Christy and Ken (a married couple), their nephew Damien and niece Laura, together with an adult friend Kendall. We'll call them our Favorite Five.
Lo and behold, up the trail and into the hut came the family with the little girls. Having made the goal, the girls were just babbling away and enjoying themselves. They were very proud of making the hike and well they should have been. After they rested a while, they headed back down at day's end.
Our Favorite Five had a very challenging agenda, picking a few huts and using them as bases to bag some peaks in the area. Damien was a veteran of the White Mountains, having been up before, but this was the first trip for Laura, a 12-year old, who, however, seemed to us to take it all in stride. We spent most of evening, through and after dinner, joshing and talking with all of them. The older adults all were highly experienced hiking in the White Mountains, and we enjoyed their stories of adventure and misadventure. We finished our evening playing a game of Appalachian Trail Trivia with them.
The group of 10 hiker guests was rounded out by a family of three, including a young boy of 7 who was very jovial and didn't seem to be fazed one whit by the rocky hikes.
Each group stayed in one of a series of attached cabins. You can see the end cabin of our row in this photo looking across Lonesome Lake toward Mount Lafayette:
No story of our evening, however, would be complete without adding that we had a scrumptious dinner prepared by the hut croo. It was topped off with American Flag decorated cupcakes. The guests were so inspired by the cupcakes that we spontaneously broke out into a very loud, if not overly harmonious, rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Only a video can do justice to the occasion, which brought tears of patriotism (or was that laughter?) to our eyes. You even get a glimpse of the hut croo cleaning up after the meal.
Little did we know, as we celebrated, that more fireworks were on the way. That evening, right around sunset, and for perhaps an hour or two thereafter, we were treated to a rip-roaring thunderstorm streaming in over our heads. Our hut was pelted with rain, hail and peals of thunder. It made for an exciting end to the July 4 holiday. Here's a photo of the sky as the storm was threatening at sunset:
We woke very early - around 5:15 am, and decided to take a walk around the lake again before coffee was ready. The whole area was shrouded in mist and cloud, and we couldn't see the surrounding mountains. The bog at the north end of the lake was positively magical:
No morning hiking is complete without coffee, and we got ours ahead of breakfast. After a steaming breakfast of oatmeal, bacon and pancakes cooked by the croo, everyone said their goodbyes. We lingered a bit to chat with Christy, who was taking a rest day to nurse an injured wrist, but we eventually - relunctantly - took our leave and headed down the mountain, back to our truck, civilization, and the mundane world of the non-hiking.
More photos from our trip are on Flickr at http://www.flickr.com/photos/scranton21/sets/72157630440419570/
Unless you've been in this area, it's hard to visualize how the hut and the mountains lay out. At this link -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/scranton21/7510578424/sizes/k/in/set-72157630440419570/
- is a photo of a diagram of the mountains around Franconia Notch, showing Lonesome Lake Hut on the left midway top-to-bottom. Toward the right of the diagram is 13 Falls Tentsite, where we will be taking our backpack next week.
With that, we'll bid you a Happy Independence Day (a day late)!
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