Cannon and Lonesome Lake (October 25, 2020) - 7.5 hours

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Climb up the Kinsman Ridge Trail partly follows the Kinsman Glade of the ski area.  Profile Lake and the North Country.

We did a loop over Cannon and Lonesome Lake starting from the Cannon ski area by the Kinsman Ridge Trail, connecting to the Lonesome Lake Trail, and returning to the Cannon ski area by the Pemi Trail. The climb up the Kinsman Ridge Trail partly follows the Kinsman Glade of the ski area (left), which made for great views down to Profile Lake and the North Country (right).

  Pemigewasset Valley and Franconia Ridge.

As we got above 3,000 feet we found the trees to be covered with rime from the previous day's storm (left) and the streams had weird frozen foam. Many rocks were coated with clear ice which required some care. At 3,800 feet we took the side trail to the great outlook across the Pemigewasset Valley to the Franconia Ridge (right).

Cannon radio tower.  Franconia Ridge.

Continuing the climb we had the Cannon radio tower in our sights (left) and more views of the Franconia Ridge with frosty trees in the foreground (right).

North Country and the mountains of Vermont.  

We got to the Rim Trail used by riders of the aerial tramway but not today (or this whole season in fact, because of Covid). This took us to the radio tower and up the wooden platform with fantastic views all around (left and right), including toward the North Country and toward the mountains of Vermont. An interesting feature was the clearing along the spine of the Cannon ski area (below left). A fire break, presumably, but it's weird because we never have fires around here.

Cannon ski area.  White trees with green moss and blue sky.

We headed down south on the Kinsman Ridge, with again beautiful scenery of white trees with green moss and blue sky (right). The descent to the intersection with Lonesome Lake Trail was extremely steep and rough, with some tricky ledges and no blazes. At one point the trail was so bad that we wondered if we were still on it.

Bog bridges.  Lonesome Lake.

We finally got down to the col and the intersection with the Lonesome Lake Trail, which we took down to Lonesome Lake. Once there we did the circle around the lake, which is a very pleasant walk along bog bridges (left) and hung out for a bit near the dock at Lonesome Lake Hut with a great view across the lake (right). We then headed down the rest of Lonesome Lake Trail to the Franconia Notch Campground, where we connected to the Pemi Trail north for 2 miles back to the car. The Pemi Trail is just a connector trail along the highway but one attractive feature is its hugging of the Profile Lake shoreline.

 

See also: 2020 Hikes