January 13, 2026

Start/End: Lafayette Place Campground

Peaks: "Little Haystack" (4,749'), Lincoln (5,089'), "Truman" (4,994'), Lafayette (5,260')

Elevation Gain: 4,010 ft

RT Mileage: 8.75 mi

Duration: 5 hours, 51 minutes

Snow/Ice Difficulty: Grade I

Almost four years ago, I hiked Lafayette for my first winter 4,000er. My original plan at that time though had been to hike the entire Franconia Ridge, and it was only because of inexperience that I was not able to, so when my friend suggested we hike the ridge for sunrise I was on board immediately.

After a rather short night, I woke up at 1:30 AM on Tuesday, picked up my friend at 2:10, and we arrived at the trailhead off I-93 around 4:20. We were the only car there, unsurprisingly. The ridge above looked like it was at least partially enveloped in clouds when we started up but we could see stars overhead and in most of the sky and the forecast was for clouds to only clear further through the morning, so we were hopeful that it would be clear by the time we hit the ridge for sunset. We donned headlamps and set out in the dark around 4:35.

This was my first sunrise hike and my first time hiking in the dark for more than an hour, and I surprisingly enjoyed the experience, even though we couldn't really see much. The Falling Waters Trail was well packed to Cloudland Falls but after that we were following just one set of footprints through the fresh snow. Fortunately, the fresh snow was only 2-3" deep with packed trail underneath, so spikes were still enough. At some point we noticed we could no longer see stars in the sky, but stayed hopeful for clearing when we hit the ridge.

We hit treeline on the Falling Waters Trail just below the summit of Little Haystack (not a 4,000er) around a half hour before sunrise, right around the beginning of civil twilight, and there was just enough light to see. The first thing we saw was that we were, in fact, inside a cloud, and we guessed it was a cap cloud since it was a little brighter overhead than on the horizon. We had timed our ascent perfectly and summited Little Haystack right around 7:05, a few minutes before sunrise, but the low clouds robbed us of seeing anything. The fog looked pretty aesthetic on the ridge in its own right, though.

It was also windier than we had expected above treeline, and we contemplated turning back, but decided to continue on at least to Lincoln, 0.7 miles further along the ridge and 300 vertical feet higher. The ascent felt a lot shorter than that, though, and we summited around 7:40.

We contemplated turning around again on Lincoln, but winds had decreased considerably by this point, and we decided to just finish the job. From Lincoln, we quickly descended 200 vertical feet and then regained 100 of those feet to summit Truman (not a 4,000er). This section also felt shorter than it was. From there, after descending 100 vertical feet and briefly re-entering the trees in the col between Truman and Lafayette, we began the 350-vertical-foot ascent to the summit of the latter. This ascent, unlike the others, felt much longer than it was, and we counted at least three false summits on the way up. These false summits were particularly deceptive in the low visibility. We finally gained the true summit around 8:30.

From Lafayette, we began descending the Old Bridle Path back to the TH 3.9 miles away, and it was a lot easier to follow than I remembered, although still trickier than the ridge had been. The winds had also completely died out by this time, and we were pretty comfortable for the first time. The one thing that just wouldn't seem to die was the fog, and it was as socked in as ever. We reached treeline at 4,500 ft on the Old Bridle Path and finally descended below the base of the cloud we were in right around the same time, yielding views of Greenleaf Hut and our remaining route below and also revealing that cloud cover had expanded, not contracted, since 4:30 AM and that it was now, in fact, cloudy everywhere.

The 100-vertical-foot ascent from Eagle Lake, which the trail descends to, back up to the hut was every bit as brutal as I remembered. It was all downhill from there though, fortunately. There were a couple of steeper sections below the hut which were a little sketchy with exposed rock and ice, and my friend glissaded these bits. I had done the same last time, but I opted to walk down this time in light of the recent ACL surgery. An opening around 3,000 ft offered views of the ridge above, which was still as socked in as ever. After exiting the coniferous forest into hardwoods around 2,600 ft, fairly low by Whites standards, the trail leveled off and we hiked the flat last 1.2 miles back to the TH with ease. We were back at the parking lot by 10:20, and winter 4,000er #15 was in the books.