This weekend a few good friends and I took off for a weekend camping & hiking in New Hampshire. Our destination was the Little Haystack - Mt. Lafayette loop in the Frankonia Range of New Hampshire's White Mountains (Falling Waters trail > Frankonia Ridge Trail > Greenleaf Trail > Old Bridle Path). The weekend trip started of first thing Friday morning as the 4 of us packed o ur gear into a van to head north. We camped on Tripoli Rd. which is a great dirt road off of Rt.93 with some great campsites. We've been gonig there for years, and this time we managed to snag a great site that's always occupied whenever we arrive. Typically, the sites are really nice and free of trash, but this time was very different. There was as obscene amount of trash scattered throughout our campsite & the 2 adjoining sites as well. Everything from broken bottles, clothing to broken tents was scattered everywhere. We did our best to tidy up a bit and proceeded to set up camp. I hope that this was a one-time event with the sites being so poorly maintained. Yes, I realize that the campers bear a huge responsibility for this (Leave No Trace), but regardless, the condition of the site was disappointing.

After we set up camp, we kicked back and relaxed with a few cold beers and prepared for the hike the next morning. We got an early start in the morning, and were at the trailhead by 9:00am. There were lots of clouds in the sky, but thankfully, no rain. The trailhead was packed and we didn't waste any time jumping right into it.

We had lunch at the Shining Rock, which is across from Cannon Mountain. Apparently it looks like it's shining from the water flowing over the rock if you look at it from the Cannon side. We were pretty surprised that only one other hiker came by while we were there. that was fine with us, with the trail being so packed, it was nice to escape other people for a bit & enjoy the relative solitude. After lunch we continued to the summit of Little Haystack & then across the ridgeline. Even though the view was considerably blocked by clouds, it was still amazing and awe inspiring.

After we were done, we crawled back to the campsite and talked about how fantastic of a hike it was as well as how tired we were. Then we made a huge fire, and crashed pretty early. It was a great hike with great friends, and I can't wait to do this again.

Check out my Flickr set from this trip if you'd like to see more pics from this trip.