Komodo and I have been talking about documenting our quest to bag the 48 4,000+ foot peaks in the White Mountains for a while and we decided to start this blog over the weekend of January 16-17, 2010.  We already had five peaks under our collective belts and I (Aper) think I’ve easily got 20 accumulated over the years (that do not count).  Part of the appeal is to get out of the rut of doing some loops over and over and over again.  I believe I’ve done Falling Waters / Franconia Ridge / Bridle Path at least 25 times over the past decade.  The other part is gaining winter mountaineering skills.  Our first post-blog trip was a great learning experience!

We were planning to do an overnight at Carter Notch Hut on Monday, MLK Day, but changed plans in the morning when we woke up to 6+ inches of new snow in Center Harbor.  We decided to stay and ski on the lake instead.

So we changed plans to a day trip, on Tuesday, to the Liberty Spring / Flume Slide Loop.  The hike sounded like no big deal from this post on VFTT.  However,  it underscores how much you need to interpret trip / condition reports!  The experience / fitness level of the poster plus the changes in weather since the post mean everything!  This was a long hike (for us) with a lot of new snowfall and when we made a wrong turn off the summit of Flume it turned into a saga / survival adventure that will serve us well as we go after the remaining 41 peaks on the list!