June 11, 2023

Start/End: The Basin parking lot

Peaks: Flume (4,328'), Liberty (4,459')

Elevation Gain: 3,565 ft

RT Mileage: 8.1 mi

Duration: 5 hours, 44 minutes

Rock Difficulty: Class 3

After taking the spring off from hiking, I decided to resume hiking with the classic Flume and Liberty Loop to warm up for the harder hikes I had planned for the summer. For those who don't know, this loop ascends the Class 3 Flume Slide Trail and descends the much tamer Liberty Spring Trail. Ironically, the Flume Slide Trail doesn't actually follow the Flume Slide, but rather a minor gully adjacent to the actual slide.

I woke up at 4:50 AM and with minimal preparation was able to leave just after 5:00, but a bathroom break delayed arrival at the trailhead to 7:45. Even so, I was still on the trail before 8:00. Almost missed the Liberty Spring bushwhack 0.4 miles in; it's way less visible in summer than winter. Another 0.4 miles in, I reached the fork between the Liberty Spring and Flume Slide trails, where I went right.

The trail basically flattened out at this point, gaining just 800 feet of elevation gain over the next 2.5 miles. This allowed for fast travel, a rarity in the Whites in summer. Anyway, after these 2.5 miles, the trail turned slightly right very close to the base of the actual slide and very abruptly began ascending the aforementioned minor gully. This was the part I had been waiting for, and it didn't disappoint.

As I had expected, the Flume Slide Trail was a nice introduction to Class 3 scrambling since the gully that it ascends is surrounded closely on both sides by trees, which isn't the case for most Class 3 routes in the Whites. My only gripe was that most of the rock was wet, which made it a lot harder for my boots to get traction. The scrambling was fun but the 0.7 miles from the base of the gully to the Osseo Trail junction were extremely steep, and it took me nearly an hour to navigate the whole gully.

The hardest Class 3 bits of scrambling were all towards the lower part of the gully, and the trail was just Class 2 above 3,600 ft. This made the upper part of the trail a little easier on the legs but also quite a bit more boring. I finally gained the picturesque summit ledges of Flume at 10:50, nearly three hours into the hike.

After spending about 15 minutes on the summit of Flume, I began my way over to Liberty. The Franconia Ridge Trail was relatively smooth in terms of White Mountains standards and the 500-foot ascent to Liberty wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. I summited Liberty just after 11:50 and had to share the summit with about a dozen other hikers.

I spent about 30 minutes at the summit of Liberty before beginning to descend. The last time I had done Liberty Spring Trail was in winter, so I had forgotten how painfully rocky it was. Every step was torture on the knees. I was very relieved when I made it down to Cascade Brook at 2,000 ft and the trail leveled off. The remaining 1.3 miles to the trailhead were very straightforward and made for a nice stroll through the woods. I made it back to the parking lot at 1:50 PM, and 4,000er #11 was in the books.