Mount Flume and Mount Liberty

Date: 9/20/2020

Mount Flume Elevation: 4,328’

Mount Liberty Elevation: 4,459’

Miles: 10 miles

Time: 8 hours

Trails: Liberty Spring Trail to Flume Slide Trail to Osseo Trail to Franconia Ridge Trail, and down Liberty Spring Trail and White House Trail

I think I might have a new favorite after this hike! People always ask me if I have a favorite hike so far, and I didn’t really have a good answer before this because I really just love them all, BUT Flume and Liberty were really amazing. I’m just going to warn you that there are a lot of pictures from this hike, but I was trying to capture how good it felt to be up there.

I will say, the person who wrote the entry for this loop seemed to be having a bad day when they hiked these two. Their commentary was so ominous that I didn’t really share it with my family (aunt, uncle, and cousin) beforehand. Aunt Becky knew what she was in for from her own research, but Uncle Marty and Amelia didn’t really hear about it until we were on the bike path that leads to the trail. I read them an excerpt from my book on Flume Slide: “The next half mile or so ascends a brutally steep chute-like gash in the heavily forested mountainside…—a very prolonged, strenuous climb…Head left 0.1 mile on the Osseo Trail to the top of Mt. Flume, where (hopefully) the panoramic views will make it all worthwhile!” I think it’s safe to assume that the writer probably struggled on the slide…But I (and I think everyone else) had a ton of fun on it!

But to back it up a bit, we parked at the Liberty Springs parking lot at 7:15am and were among the first cars there. It was a chilly fall day—temperatures in the thirties and forties for the start of our hike—so we were bundled up. An early wakeup for both of us, but luckily this hike is right off i93 so it’s a very easy (and shorter) drive. After a quick exchange of snacks that they had brought for me (elite hiking snacks I might add—m&ms, sour patch watermelon, protein balls, apple), we hit the trail. If I’m remembering correctly, you have to hike .6 mile on a connector path before you hit the bike path that takes you to the Liberty Springs trail. You then follow Liberty Springs for another .6 before you branch to the infamous Flume Slide Trail. After 2.5 miles you hit the “chute-like gash,” which would be pretty terrible to climb if it has just rained, so don’t do that. Also, don’t come down this way!! It would be very dangerous so avoid at all costs.

For us, in the midst of the drought we’re having, it was very dry, which meant our challenge was just to find the right handholds to get ourselves up the slide. This was tricky! It’s definitely the most technical climb I’ve done so far since it feels a bit more like rock climbing at times rather than just hiking, but all the hand and foot holds are there—you just have to trust your upper body at times to hoist yourself up (especially if you have a bad hip like me). We took our time (as you should!), so a few groups went on past us. At one point we heard one of them exclaim, “what the heck?!” as they couldn’t figure out how they were supposed to ascend. Pictures never really do these slides justice, but maybe you can get a sense of what it was like:

It’s maybe important to also note that the footing is super gravely and loose at times, so we kept creating small rock avalanches for the person behind us. So maybe just give each other a little extra space and you’ll be fine. I thought the slide was so much fun and all four of us made it through. Just go slow and it’s totally doable!

After the slide, you have some more hiking to do before you get to the Osseo Trail. Amelia and I waited here for Marty and Becky and in the meantime found a small side trail to a view. I’d recommend checking this out because there is an awesome ledge out there.

^be sure to swipe through the photos to see all of them!

0.1 mile on the Osseo will get you to Mt. Flume! This section took us a while to do for how short it is, but there are so many awesome viewpoints along the way that we had to stop at.

Once we made it to the true summit around 11am, we sat down to rest, eat, and soak in the views.

1.2 miles further on, you can see Mount Liberty easily from Flume. We got ourselves ready and started the relatively-easy hike between the two peaks on Franconia Ridge. It’s a bit of a valley rather than a ridge, so we descended to then ascend. Around noon we made it to the busier summit of Mount Liberty (I think a lot of people may have just been doing this hike without Flume). More amazing views here!! The leaves are starting to change colors and this hike only made me more excited for future ones when the foliage will really be popping.

^swipe through again!

We took a nice long break on Liberty before heading down. It’s a bit steep for a very small section, but nothing too bad. You pass the Liberty Spring tent site 0.3 mile after turning onto Liberty Springs. There are a lot of tent platforms if you’re into that sort of thing. I’m sticking with my day hikes for now :)

Eventually we reached the bike path again and I think were a bit disappointed when we realized how far we still had to the parking lot lol. We crushed that last section and made it back to our cars at 3:20.

As always I felt very lucky to have such great people to hike with and share such an amazing day with, especially when it’s family who you don’t see too often and who will bring you really great snacks.