Mt. Liberty via Liberty Springs Trail - Thoughts?

I was highly considering hiking the Liberty Springs Trail to Mt. Liberty this weekend as a great day long hike. I have found many hike reports about hiking to Flume and Liberty via the Flume Slide Trail and then down the Liberty Springs Trail, but not just via the Liberty Springs Trail. How challenging is the Liberty Springs trail? or even the Flume Slide Trail? I would like to bag another 4,000 footer if I could this weekend and I'm wondering if this would be a good hike.

Liberty via Liberty Springs is a fairly easy 4000 footer. It is a long slog up a consistent moderate grade all the way, as I recall. Not the most exciting trail, maybe monotonous at times. Lots of AT hikers, so it could be busy on a weekend. Flume Slide Trail loop over to Liberty is considerably harder and should not be done when wet. Personally, I did not really enjoy the Flume Slide Trail, but climbing up the Slide itself was interesting. Both are great peaks with 360 degree views in a fabulous section of the whites, you can't go wrong either way.

Here's my Liberty page. I have a Flume Slide trip report from last summer mostly finished but not posted yet.

Liberty Springs is a nice walk up, steep in some places but nothing to worry about. Flume Slide is a much more challenging hike, with some scrambling and route finding. It's not great for wet weather or people afraid of heights. Don't plan on going down that trail.

There will be water at the Liberty Springs campsite, so you can carry a little less as long as you have something to filter or treat the water. It's wicked hot out there this weekend, drink lots and lots of water.

-dave-

Liberty Springs Trail was previously my most favorite trail as I like what I call the "trail of 10,000 steps" to the summit. I still like it, just that I hiked it too much. The views from the summit always is enjoyable. Hope you go the 1.2 mile to Mt Flume and share a quick trip report with us so we may read of your adventure. Happy Trails and Enjoy!

Well I decided against going up to Mts Liberty and Flume because of the extreme heat and humidity. Instead I opted for a hike up Cannon Mtn. I took the Hi-Cannon trail up and the Kinsman Ridge Trail down, trip report and photos coming soon. I'm not sure if either one of them would have been any easier than the other because Hi-Cannon was difficult in places for me as the footing was that great, and I found that the trail wasn't very well marked, but I still had a great time nonetheless. 6.6 miles for the whole day. Thanks for all the info!

Hi-Cannon wasn't well marked? I've hiked it recently and didn't notice any problems. Where were things unclear for you?

-dave-

I hiked the Hi-Cannon trail again a month ago with SilentCal and ghostdog, found it well marked and maintained, and met many very interesting folks when we left Cannon to hike over the Cannon Balls. What a superb hike!

While Liberty Spring is different than Hi-Cannon, it's just as doable in hot * humid weather, the fact that you would need to go over Liberty to Flume & back on the Franconia Ridge trail would mean you are on a high cooler ridge for a mile each way (about 1.5 each way from the Liberty Spring trail junction & Flume Summit.

While both are doable in the hot weather, Liberty Springs Trail has more shade of the two. And one gets to see Liberty from a very different perspective.

I found that the trail wasn't well marked with blazes, but since it was traveled enough by other hikers it was still easy enough to follow. I tend to try and keep track of where the blazes are, as I love to stop and look around in the woods for a minute or two. Either way the trail was fun and challenging for me as this was one of my first real day-long hikes on hiking trails. I usually just hike at ski areas, but have recently found that hiking trails are just as fun for me as the ski trails.

Jonni said:

I found that the trail wasn't well marked with blazes, but since it was traveled enough by other hikers it was still easy enough to follow.

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Unless trails are much less heavily used, or through very tangled terrain, you are unlikely to be able to always see one blaze from the previous one. These trails get a lot of use, and it's pretty tough to lose them even if you try. Most trails in the Whites don't need frequent blazing except around trail junctions and difficult turns.

-dave-

As Dave said, the more heavily a trail is used & easy to follow between the trees & ground, the less likely it will be marked.

Even on this one though it would be hard to walk more than a minute or two tops & not see a marker either in front of you or behind you. (trees are not always marked front & back so a marker on a tree visible while climbing the trail may not be visible while descending or have a marker on the other side for descending hikers & likewise a marker visible on the way down may not be visible for hikers going uphill.

Interesting that you like hiking ski areas. While the trails are wide, on hot sunny days the only shade is on the edge, & the grass is usually allowed to grow pretty high so you can't see where your feet are going real well. Trails are also designed for fast travel downhill when covered by snow, so they are usually steep & don't have many switchbacks. I did Sugarloaf in the late 90's via the ski trails due to the condition of Caribou Valley Raod at that time. It was not a pleasant trip IMO although the weather was great. One advantage the ski trails do have is the views are usually great without trees to block your view....

one could actually consider open ski trails a bad thing when it comes to views. one of the most rewarding aspects of hiking is coming out of the trees after an hour of ploding along and coming to a grand view. you appreciate it a lot more after two hours under the trees and even a small window through the trees can seem majestic. skiing spoils many people on views. there are a few views from ski areas that still blow me away like cannon and wildcat. other than that, i will occasionally stop when something catches my eye, but when you see grand views all day, it desensitizes slightly and when you are under trees most of the day, it makes you long for just a peep.

i rarely notice blazes on trails any more. hiking in the fair weather seasons, well worn trails are generally easy to follow. often times, i can't recall the last time i hiked past a blaze, just not something i look for on trails in the whites due to their heavy usage.