Call It A Great Day on Franconia Ridge

Epic views, an exposed ridge, and tagging the summits of two of New Hampshire’s 48 4,000-footers always makes a hike across Franconia Ridge a worthwhile endeavor. Throw in good friends, great weather, a pre-hike breakfast of biscuits and gravy from Sunny Day Diner, and icy cold Moat Mountain Brewing Call It A Day Double IPAs waiting in the car, and it might have been one of my best hiking trips in recent memory.

In true New England style, the next day’s planned hike up Mount Pierce and over to Mount Eisenhower was met with high winds, intermittent snow, cold temperatures, dark clouds, and a twinge of a hangover (damn those double IPAs)–all of which conspired to make it unpleasant enough to decide against making the 1.5-mile trip from Pierce’s summit across the Crawford Path to Mount Eisenhower, and leaving me wondering if I should have called it a day on Franconia Ridge.

Any day in the mountains is a good one, but today I’m just going to celebrate where I should have called it quits last weekend.

Looking for more information on hiking Franconia Ridge? Check out this goEast article Doug and I wrote about it.

By Tim Peck