09/30/06 Hiking Arethusa Falls/Ripley Falls Trails:
Rain and fog all day yesterday and part of the night. Very damp and cold this morning. I noticed the cloud cover was gone, letting the cold back in. I figured with the rain, the falls would have as much water going over them as they would till spring so I chose these two famous falls for today.
1.5 miles and 1 hour to Arethusa Falls after diverging from the Frankenstein Trail. Pretty easy the whole way until the end. The last .2 miles drops 100-200 feet or so to the falls and then you have to climb back out. The falls were great, even with the amount of water coming over them, which was adequate. 200 feet high and the water came pretty much straight down in a broad band.
I took the connecting trail to Ripley Falls thinking I'd retrace my steps to Arethusa Falls and then return to the parking area via the Frankenstein Cliffs Trail. Didn't work out that way.
The trail started out OK but then started to drop and drop and drop all the way to Ripley Falls which turned out to be Upper Ripley Falls and then dropped some more to the lower falls. No way was I gonna climb back up that if I didn't have too. Ripley Falls were nice too, with an adequate flow of water.
20 minutes took me to the Ripley Falls/Ethan Pond parking lot and I walked the couple of miles along US 302 to the Arethusa Falls Parking lot.
Just about to the Arethusa Falls parking lot I see 3 of the 5 hikers I had been playing tag with on the way up to Arethusa Falls. We had parted company when I went off to Ripley Falls and they returned via Frankenstein Cliffs. Somewhere along the line they got lost. The husband of one of 3 sisters took off by himself while dad and the sisters went another way. Then one of the sisters broke off and the rest bushwacked back down to the highway where I met them going the wrong way. I left them back at the parking lot. Hope everything turned out OK for them.
I spent the rest of the day with some sunshine doing the tourist thing driving up and down Crawford Notch taking pictures. Went over to Franconia Notch but the foliage seemed to be past peak.
10/03/06 Hiking Mount Willard Trail:
Continuous rain for the past two days. Started up the Webster-Jackson Trail yesterday but ran into clouds and fog as I got higher and turned back, right into the rain. It didn't rain hard, just steadily.
Today, at least, it's not raining. Actually had some blue in the sky but by the time I got on the trail it had disappeared.
The Mount Willard Trail is advertised as the best view in the White Mountains for the amount of effort expended. The trail rises 900 feet in 1.6 miles so the amount of effort wasn't all that much. The view is of the valleys below the notch and some ranges beyond them.
Hiking Frankenstein Cliffs Trail:
This is the part of the Arethusa Falls/Ripley Falls/Frankenstein Cliffs Loop I didn't complete the other day. This trail is also 900 feet in 1.3 miles. The first part of the trail is rocky and rooty and pretty rough but pretty flat too. The trail passes under a railroad trestle and then turns from rough to tough. The section between the trestle and the cliff face is steep. From there to the ledge at 1.3 miles is mostly pretty steep with some easier sections.
The view from the ledge is pretty much the same as from Mount Willard except it's a couple of miles closer.