I'll make this a multi-post series, for organization. Planning details come first; scroll down for pictures.
Planned Route
I planned a route that mostly followed the Appalachian Trail through the White Mountains. This included most of the Pemi Loop, and most of a Presidential Traverse. I chose this route through the Whites because planning it was easier:
- Following the Appalachian Trail meant I knew I wouldn’t be trying to go the “wrong direction” on a “one way” trail. Philip Werner says that many trails in the Whites can be dangerous to hike in the “wrong direction”: https://sectionhiker.com/white-mount...ite-mountains/
- Finding water sources and suitable campsites would be easy using Appalachian Trail guides, such as the AWOL AT Guide.
- Both the Pemi Loop and Presidential Traverse are famous, popular hikes with many descriptions online.
- Parking at Lincoln Woods Trailhead made hitchhiking back to the car easy.
Here is my planned route, on AllTrails:
https://www.alltrails.com/explore/ma...e-nh-2-72b32a1
PemiLoop_and_Presidentials.png
I did this hike with my buddy Dave from Sun 9/19/2021 to Thurs 9/23/2021.
Alternative start locations & transportation
Other options, for a similar hike, could have involved parking somewhere in Franconia Notch, which might not have had the $5/day parking fee like Lincoln Woods Trailhead Parking Lot. But then a hitchhike might have required 3 legs: one from Pinkham Notch to Conway, a second leg to Lincoln, and a 3rd leg up I-93 or Rt 3 to our car. This seemed like pushing our luck.
There is alternatively an AMC hiker shuttle for $20/person, which could have taken us from our endpoint at Pinkham Notch to e.g. Lafayette Campground in Franconia Notch (if we’d started our hike there). But the schedule looked like it would take a long time, and would not be robust to time delays in our hiking: the shuttle trip would have two legs, with a stopover in Highland Center, and we’d have to catch the Pinkham Notch shuttle at 10:40am to make the last connection that goes through to Lafayette Campground to arrive at 2:45pm. I hoped that hitchhiking to Lincoln Woods Trailhead would be faster and more flexible – and it definitely was!
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