By Marty Basch

The bearded forest campsite caretaker along the Liberty Spring Trail, a.k.a the Appalachian Trail, said something like this about the notoriously difficult, steep, wet and unrelenting Flume Slide Trail: I live in the woods and I won't go down that trail.

To that I add: We live on a dirt road and there's no way we're ever going up that  trail again.

The punishing pathway, infamous for about a three-quarter of a mile exhausting straight up section on slippery, wet rock slabs with small loose stones underfoot, is part of a nearly 10-mile loop up 4,000-footers Mounts Flume and Liberty in the Franconia Range on the Whitehouse, Liberty Spring, Flume Slide and Franconia Ridge Trails.

To the victor belongs the spoils of unparalleled panoramas of Franconia Notch and the Pemigewasset Wilderness, plus notching two 4,000-footers. But survival comes with a price: pain.

Beat up

On a day with plentiful cloud cover and a forecast for late afternoon showers, Jan Duprey and I left Lafayette Campground in Franconia Notch State Park, a popular centrally located area campground,  for the nearby trailhead that included the path one guide book calls "one of the hardest" in New Hampshire.

We shared the benign first few miles with a seasoned rock climbing and hiking dad and his enthusiastic fourth-grade daughter along the Whitehouse Trail, across the paved smooth bike path, over a bridge spanning the Pemigewasset River, rock-hopping across several stream crossings and taking the Liberty Spring Trail to the initially good-natured and moderate Flume Slide Trail.

Down, but not out

At around 4 miles, the slide climb begins in earnest and that was the last we saw of dad-and-daughter mountain goats. Hikers have no doubt served up a litany of colorful adjectives while ascending the slide created some 125 years ago. We continued the tradition during the slog that took us off the main trail and onto the muddy, slippery, steep and low-branch laden bushwhacked trails to the sides. Branches frequently snagged the collapsible hiking poles protruding from my pack as we crawled up and over blow-downs.  It easily took us more than 75 minutes to survive the under-a-mile agony.

Beat up from the ascent and final rock scramble, more than a modicum of joy was experienced on Flume's 4,328-foot  narrow cliff-like summit with incredible looks down sharp scars  and into the Pemigewasset Wilderness. We re-fueled with sandwiches and ibuprofen before toiling onward.

The Franconia Ridge Trail dipped down into a col before leading up to the ledges atop 4,459-foot Mount Liberty. Just over a mile between the two peaks, LIberty's rocky perch also had us scrambling some before bursting out above dramatic Franconia Notch with Cannon's stunning cliffs to the north and the stately Franconia Range community standing tall. On Liberty's ledges we met other hikers who were just climbing that peak, or heading over to Flume only to retrace their steps back. One hiker met had planned to go down the Flume Slide Trail (it doesn't reveal its devilish personality on a map) but was persuaded by others along the way not to do it.

Step by step

We slowly hiked down the Liberty Spring Trail, grateful for its many rock steps but feeling like spent boxers well into the final rounds of a slugfest hoping the bell won't ring again.  Banality was nearly kept at bay by meeting ascending AT thru-hikers from California, Texas and Montana. One man was hiking the trail for the fifth time, and had a freshly trimmed beard and stylish hair cut. The long-distance veteran hiker traveled lightly and had worked out a system where he purchases gear along the way.

The Appalachian Mountain Club's Liberty Spring tent platform site was like a little Shangri-La with its cool spring and wooden hand rails. It was there we met the caretaker with his sage trail advice before pressing on. The trail relented a bit as we passed a muddied trail crew of four installing rock steps before passing the familiar junction of the Whitehouse Trail.

The skies opened with light rain as we sat with tortured naked feet on the gate of my covered pick-up truck in the parking lot. One misguided hiking book provided a 7-hour time for the loop. Another had a realistic 8-hour estimate. We toasted surviving our 9-hour White Mountain ordeal.