The Road to Wyoming

This spring I'm doing a lot of hiking to prepare for a summer hiking trip to the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Some friends and I are going to be spending about 2 weeks in the mountains camping, hiking, and sliding down glaciers (only if the thin air makes me delirious enough!). This past weekend we climbed Mt. Lafayette in Franconia, NH. It's a beautiful climb with terrifically unobstructed views of the valley below and the mountains beyond (unlike Monadnock or Chocoroua, where the views were only apparent closer to the peak, there were great lookout spots even halfway up the mountain, like in the photo above - click for a larger version). There's an AMC hut near the peak (which we didn't get to due to a crazy cold front and sudden foggy and rainy conditions) from which the picture below is taken - again, click for a larger version. Straight ahead in the photo is the Mt. Lafayette peak. The hut runs on solar and wind power, and was surprisingly nice, with lots of bunk beds, plenty of room to chill out, and a large kitchen.