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Liberty & Flume

Liberty Springs and Osceo trails

Decmber 4, 2010

With snow falling and 2 inches already on the ground when we woke up, we were excited for our hike today. Not yet Winter, but hopefully Winter conditions! We met Mike and Gina at Lincoln Woods,, then drove over to the trailhead to start our hike. Only 3 cars were in the lot as we pulled in at 9:45 AM. Off we went, hiking on an inch or two of snow covering frozen ground with ice here and there.

Great laughs along the way as Mike showed off his abilities to remember every turn on the trail and our location compared to the Tent sites :> Damm good thing we came to the "Your are Here" sign! At the Tent site we decided to put microspikes on as the amount of ice under the snow was increasing. Changing the layers we had on, we were amused by a red squirel that came over to us looking for food. Bob was quick to offer the little guy some of his trail mix, but Geri decided that the M&M's were better for her that the furry little creature.

As we approached the summit we were treated to blue skys, and no wind. A snack, some photos, and we were off to Mt Flume. In the col we decided it was time for lunch. Mike pulled out a huge bag of steak tips to share, and Gina a batch of chocolate chip cookies she had baked the night before. What an upgrade from the normal goo and energy bars!

After we filled our bellys we headed up to the summit of Flume where we ran into two of the hikers we had seen in the parking lot. They had ascended via the Flume Slide trail with ice axes and crampons. After some conversation we headed out on the Osceo trail adn our car at Lincoln Woods. When we came to the stairs we saw that a new outlook had been cut with nice views of Whaleback. A gorup of 4 passed us on their ascent to Flume and stopped to chat with us for a while. After this spot the trail becomes more gentle so we opted to start jogging. With a stop to delayer at a large blowdown, we continued all the way to the Wilderness trail where we delayered even more in prep for the final 1.5 miles. A short time later the car and heated restrooms greeted us.

Another great hike in the Whites with Mike and Gina! Thanks guys!

Directions to Trailhead
Rte 93 north to exit 34A. Merge onto Rte 3. Turn right into the first parking lot after the Flume Visitor Center.

Length of Hike:
5:30 hours
10.50 miles