Franconia Ridge (Mt. Lincoln & Mt. Lafayette)

Date: 6/18/2021

Mt. Lincoln Elevation: 5,089’

Mt. Lafayette Elevation: 5,260'

Miles: 9 miles

Time: 5 hours, 45 minutes

Trails: Falling Waters Trail to Franconia Ridge Trail to Greenleaf Trail to Old Bridle Path

Wowowow, what a special day this was.

The Franconia Ridge is really *the* hike of New Hampshire. Named one of National Geographic’s best hikes in the world, this hike is incredibly popular pretty much all year round. Well, except at night…

After seeing so many posts in the ‘Hike the 4000 Footers of NH!’ Facebook page about how the ridge gets mobbed in the summer, I started thinking about how I could get some solo time up there. Now I don’t have any problems with other people on the trail—hikers are among the friendliest out there and I love that everyone can come and experience the beauty of our state—but with something as beautiful as the exposed ridge, I just had ideas of how special it would be to be up there completely alone.

And so that’s what led to Elliott and I starting our hike at 2:15am on a Friday in June. I slept back in Boston from 5:45pm-10:45pm, woke up to eat dinner at 11pm, and then was on the road at 11:40. Elliott wasn’t lucky enough to get as much sleep, but he made it up to the Falling Waters Trailhead anyways.

When we got out of our cars in the lot, the stars were popping OFF. It was such a clear night and the sky was just absolutely beautiful. But there wasn’t much time to stay there staring up at the sky if we wanted to catch the full sunrise on the ridge. We strapped on our headlamps and hit the trail.

Now Elliott had just come back from a lot of trail running in Colorado so he had his legs under him and lungs that were just pumping oxygen like it was nothing. He set a great pace for us that got us to the ridge in an hour and 45 minutes and also left me pretty winded at times since we were trying to catch up after months apart. Falling Waters Trail has a lot of big waterfalls that I’m sure would be even more beautiful if you had more than just two headlamps to see them. I’d love to do the trail again in the daylight just to see them.

After our quick ascent, we reached the Franconia Ridge Trail at 4am just after first light. The skyline had this strip of a deep red that I don’t think I’ve ever seen in the sky before. SO BEAUTIFUL.

First light

We hit Little Haystack (over 4,000’ but doesn’t count towards the 48 because of prominence rules or whatever) and continued across the ridge with it all to ourselves as the sky brightened around us. At 4:30am we arrived at Mt. Lincoln, which marked my first peak over 5,000 feet(!!). On the final ascent of Mt. Lafayette, we crossed paths with the first person we had seen all day and then reached the top just as the sun was rising at 5am. We found a little area protected from the wind to eat our sandwiches and watch the rest of the sunrise before heading down.

A little over a mile from the top of Lafaytte is Greenleaf Hut, one of the AMC huts that my family stayed at when I was little. We stopped to peak in and leave our names in the guest book (go look for an entry on 6/18/2021!) and the dining area was full of the smell of fresh-baked coffee cake. I really love these huts.

An hour and a half out from the hut and we were back in the parking lot at 8am…which is when I normally start my hikes. The lot was pretty full at this point and people were hitting the trail. I really can’t recommend doing this for sunrise enough. Bring a friend to soak it all in with :)

For a video version of all this, check out my TikTok I made!