With the first week under your belt, are you now ready to kick up the challenge rating for your second week of Winter School?

Enter Mount Liberty, one of the six mountains along Franconia Ridge. Its rocky open summit, at 4,459 ft, affords terrific panoramic views of the surrounding Pemigewasset Wilderness. We will ascend Mt. Liberty via the Liberty Spring and Franconia Ridge trails. After enjoying the fantastic views on Mt. Liberty, we will continue to the equally fantastic views on Mt. Flume if time permits. A winter school classic!

Roundtrip distance is 9.4 miles (round-trip) for Mt. Liberty & Mt. Flume (elevation gain ~ 4143’). See map: https://www.alltrails.com/trail/us/new-hampshire/mount-liberty-and-mount-flume-via-whitehouse-liberty-springs-and-franconia-ridge-tr

This will be a strenuous hike due to mileage and elevation gain, hence you are strongly recommended to be a strong hiker. Specifically, experience on similarly difficult 3-season hikes and fitness commensurate with a steep ~ 4,000 ft of elevation gain are a must. We plan to hike at a moderate-fast pace. There is a small amount of an above treeline travel, which will be an excellent intro for those who have not yet experienced the thrill and challenges of above-treeline traverse in NH winter.

Feel free to reach out to the trip leaders Samantha, samantha.a.mandel@gmail.com, Theresa, cloutiertk@gmail.com and Elias, elias.witman@gmail.com if you have any questions about whether or not you are prepared for this hike :)

The current weather forecast (https://www.mountain-forecast.com/peaks/Mount-Liberty-New-Hampshire/forecasts/1359) predicts a cloudy, medium-cold day of 25 F with a slight chance of snow in the evening. We’ll update this as we get closer to the weekend.

You'll need warm layers, insulated hiking boots, microspikes, and snowshoes.

All of the equipment can be rented from MITOC!

Pre-trip meeting will be in the hall above the MITOC office on the 5th floor outside the elevators at 5:30 on Thursday. More details will be sent to trip participants after the lottery runs.

If you can drive your own car or are willing to drive a rental car, edit the “Lottery preferences” on your MITOC profile to show this. Participants will share car costs.