Started at Lafayette Place and hiked up the Old Bridle Path. The trail was icy from the beginning, but we barebooted it for about an hour and then we put on crampons and left them on for the entire hike. The weather was cold. It was the one of my coldest hikes and definitely the coldest hike this season considering the warm winter that we have been having. Below there was no wind with the exception of a couple light breezes. Once we got to Greenleaf hut, we took a break, ate some lunch, and put on all our above treeline clothing and then continued up to Lafayette. The morning was clear, but the Lafayette was in the clouds as we climbed further up, the wind increased (although the wind was mostly to our back, which was nice). When we reached the summit, the visibility was poor, but we could still see well enough to see the trail. All of us felt good and while it was windy and cold, it was not bad enough for us to turn around so we continued along Franconia Ridge towards Lincoln. The views improved as continued towards Lincoln and Little Haystack, but the battery in my camera was too frozen, so I was unable to take a lot of pictures. (And we did not want to stop for too long in the cold and wind or else we would have got cold.) The wind speed varied, but I would guess that there were sustained gusts close to 50 mph. As we continued along ridge, the wind was coming over my right side and I made a mistake. My glasses and goggles were fogging up so I pulled down my facemask a little bit so the moisture would not go to my goggles and I did not know it until a fellow hiker mentioned it to me after we were below treeline, but I got some frostbite on my right cheek, (which was exposed) and it turned bright red, but I did not think much of it then. After we got below treeline the wind cleared. We took a short side trip to shining rock cliff and then continued down Falling Waters. Falling Water was a nice trail and nice ice falls and if you looked carefully, you could see water traveling underneath the ice. It was good hike, but you definitely needed to come prepared for the weather. Fortunately my frostbite was not bad, but it was red for almost a week and was nearly healed after a week. It did not prevent me from climbing Washington the following week and I made sure that there were no exposed areas on that hike.
Looking up on Lafayette (in the clouds) from Greenleaf hut
The calm trail just before going above treeline
Lafayette Summit: The great grey views of clouds.
Catalin and Catherine on Little Haystack
View of Kinsman, Lonesome Lake and Cannon Mountain.
Glove in lower right corner. Could see Flume and Liberty in the distance.
Catalin at Shining Rock Cliff
Catherine
Someone pretending to climb shining rock cliff (oh wait, thats me.)
Ice Fall on Falling Waters Trail
Maybe they should change the name to frozen waters trail in the winter
