Troop 54 returned to White Mountain National Forest in Lincoln, New Hampshire. We hiked a loop to Thirteen Falls for our second time; our previous time was in 2019. We had 2 youth and 3 adult participants. A couple of departure day illnesses reduced the size of our group.
On the first day, we hit the trail at about 11:25 AM. We started on the Wilderness Trail (Lincoln Woods Trail), then the Franconia Brook Trail, making our way to the 13 Falls tentsite as planned and arriving at about 6:35 PM. This day was characterized by a relatively steady but mild gain in elevation and a few stream crossings, stepping across on rocks. The site, managed by the Appalachian Mountain Club, had 9 tent sites carved into the very rocky landscape, a very rocky cooking area without a fire pit and a recently constructed composing latrine. It was quite close to the 13 Falls.
The second day, we hit the trail at about 10:50 AM, taking the Lincoln Brook Trail with a target of camping at Black Pond. The first two miles had a steep upward incline with the rest being downhill. The trail required crossing streams several times, and had long stretches of mud and bog to cross. Our progress was slow, so we ended up camping well short of our target, stopping at about 5:30 PM. That site had been used before and looked to have been part of a former forest road. While we were there, two of our participants went for a swim in the river which was reportedly quite cold.
The last day, we got an earlier start at about 8:00 AM. The Lincoln Brook Trail from the camp site to the Wilderness Trail was pretty rough. As we made our way downhill, the brook grew steadily larger, and the trail crossed it many times. Eventually, most of us fell in to various extents, so most of us hiked the last few miles in soaking wet boots. We got back to the trailhead at about 1:55 PM.
The whole trail was about 23 miles. See our actual trail, as recorded by Joshua Froimson's GPS (missing part of Day 2):
My Maps - map uploaded into Google My Maps
GPX file (for downloading)
This was our 188th consecutive month with at least one overnight camping trip.
Page updated 9/7/24
J. Froimson
