Hiking in the Pemigewasset Wilderness: Lincoln Woods/Wilderness/Bondcliff trails.

At some point during the hot, oppressively humid, and generally disgusting summer weather I began to think about fall hiking. Knowing that I was straight out at work until mid October I began to concoct a plan. I concluded that on October 27th, after having a few days to catch my breath post insanity, Eric and I would head to Lincoln to climb Bondcliff (and maybe peak bag Bond if the weather was good.) I locked the day down ages ago, really looking forward to a final long hike in ideal conditions.

Back in July, an October trip to the wilderness seemed great!

I was imagining cooler weather (at the time, and after such a hot summer, I was assuming 50's) amazing foliage, and a day to relax and enjoy the mountains.

Right.

The weather has a way of doing what it wants. And what it wanted to do was snow. And be really cold. And windy.

I tracked the forecast (as one does) and concluded that if we started early, we could reach the peak of Bondcliff and bail before things got ugly. (with 100 km per hour winds scheduled for 7PM there was NO WAY IN HELL that we were risking a late day.) The Lincoln, NH area appeared to be getting mostly rain, and it looked like we might see a bit of snow on our return trip to Maine.

Wishing to get an early start, and not really relishing the notion of yet another 1:30AM wake up time, we drove to Lincoln and stayed the night before. We love the "off" season, because it makes staying over a reasonable, and affordable option.
I avoided watching the 18 inning Sox game, and we awoke (somewhat exhausted) at 3:30 AM (basically when people were finishing up drinking beer/watching the game, and switching to drinking coffee/getting ready for the first day of the Maine deer hunting season.)

The weather was just fine. 33 degrees. No precipitation. No wind.
We drove to the Lincoln woods visitors center in the dark, paid our $5 to park with the other 3 cars, and made our way to the trailhead. The place was deserted. (just the way we like it!) But also not a day to get ruined out on the trail, and hope for other hikers to wander by and offer aid. So, with our safety first mindset firmly in place, off we headed into the dark.

The suspension bridge over the Pemigewasset River

And were immediately warned about the bothersome bear. (clearly, this photo was taken on the return trip...)

Watch out

Armed with our usual headlamps and such, we struck off on the Lincoln Woods trail for 2.9 miles. It was BONE FLAT, and we covered this section in less that an hour. It was a great way to warm up, and to figure out our layering strategy to stay dry/warm throughout this long, flat section of trail.

Typical dark start. 

Honestly, this was basically a walking path. Later in the day, despite the weather, we saw many usual walkers, families, and children strolling along this path. (so. very family friendly.)
This trail is an old railbed, which means you'll be seeing a lot or railroad ties, ironware, as well as remnants of old logging camps. When we made our return trip in the daylight, it was definitely interesting to look around and take in the history (although I'm a bit concerned that when we do the Pemi loop at some point, that we might all die of boredom during the miles of endless flat!!)

After the 2.9 initial miles, you go over a suspension bridge and the trail is no longer very bike friendly (or, bike legal.) The trail, at that time becomes the Wilderness Trail (with zero fanfare) and while it narrows slightly, is still completely flat. We really motored this whole section, averaging over 3 MPH (this would be a very easy section to run. but we carry too much stuff.)

We did have a bit of trouble finding the junction where the Bondcliff trail veers left around mile 4.8.

It would be helpful to have this trail marker where the trail turns left. But nope. (so don't turn left when you see this sign!!)

We came to what appeared to be a stream crossing, and, with our eyes being drawn across the brook to a "no camping" sign (very reflective off the headlamps) we crossed the icy stone brook (where I promptly slipped, dunked my whole foot, and had to do a hasty sock change.)
After puttering about for a bit, and consulting the map, we turned around. Thanks to the increasing daylight we were then able to see the sharp left turn (and the very, very faint light blue blazes that would continue to appear *sporadically* for the remainder of our trip.)

After that little misstep, we continued without issue. I will say though, that this stretch of trail was not well marked at all, at least to the more casual observer (which I am not, as I do not wish to become lost in the woods.) The trail was heavy with fallen leaves, and in some places you really needed to be quite observant about where you were going. Probably solid advice, no matter where you are hiking.


There were a couple miles of winding, very wooded trail with some fairly dry stream crossings. I imagine these could be problematic in seasons with snow melt, or heavy rain.

One of many stream crossings

Compared to what we have come to expect in the Whites, there were few rocks. (don't get me wrong. There were some. But nothing compared to the boulder city of Madison, etc)

Very typical stretch of the lower part of the Bondcliff Trail

Gradually, we began to find the remnants of a fairly big storm that the area had experienced several days before. While some of the White Mountain region got a few feet of snow, there were only a few inches here. And someone had kindly tramped it does for us!

Just a bit of snow

For the most part, despite the continued lack of blazes, the trail was easy to follow. There was a fairly twisting section at one point which may have been challenging to follow, if we were not following footsteps from the previous day. With that one exception, you essentially follow the narrow path.

As we climbed, the snow become deeper but was not at all problematic. It actually managed to nicely pad some of the rocks, which were surely buried underneath! While there were a couple steeper sections of the trail, they were fairly short lived. The hike is more of a slow and steady climb. You have just over 9 miles to reach 4,265 feet so you won't be redlining the whole thing.

Knowing that we were just ahead of a pretty major winter storm, when the wind took on an ominous feel we decided to play it safe and turn around (even though we were sooooo close. We probably had about a half mile climb left to go.) Oh well though, it is better to be the hikers who bail, than the hikers who need the heli evac (and even though Evan was not with us, our summer long "Heli Evac" chant certainly came up once or twice...)

Winter in full effect

The decent was straightforward and flew by. Before we knew it, we turned right onto the Wilderness/Lincoln Woods trail.

One still gets tired after a 17 mile day, even if some of it is flat!

We then proceeded to zip along for the 4.8 miles of bone flat superhighway back to our car.

Bone Flat Superhighway

With about a mile to go, the freezing precipitation began.
On a nice day, we would really have enjoyed the scenery more (that's going to be the plus side of the endless, pin straight, pancake flat final section of the loop. We will at least have things to look at!) We chose not to take the .4 mile detour to see Franconia Falls, which we have heard is fantastic. We basically just put our heads down, and trudged on. (and looked at the bridges, because I love them.)

I've never met a bridge that I didn't want to take a crappy photo of

After going the whole day with zero human sightings, the floodgates opened and we saw a ton of people. Clearly, the Lincoln Woods Trail is very popular for the family walk crowd, even in crap weather, and I imagine it is a complete zoo in the summer. I believe there are some swimming holes in the river, that are very popular.

Much of the Lincoln Woods trail is next to the river

The temperature remained at freezing all day, (although it was much colder when we were close to the summit.) Basically, shit was frozen.

Pretty though

We made it back, uneaten by the bear.

And honestly, with the weather rapidly worsening, we were not disappointed that we had turned back.

You can see the ice on my hat

The drive home was a shit show of epic proportions. The end.

Fucking aggressive 

Stats:
Time: 7 hours 10 minutes (included around 30 minutes of trail location in the dark....)
Mileage: 16.9
Elevation gain: 2,630
Challenge level: Easy/Moderate. The almost 10 miles of flat made the one of the most straightforward hikes we have done. The climb itself was also pretty benign, although we missed the one lone scramble at the end. I suppose I must give this hike a moderate rating due to the distance, and the need to be extra attentive to the route at times. However, I would certainly give it an easy for terrain. You could most definitely bring your non-hiking friends on the first 4.8 miles of this trail with zero issue.