It was a beautiful, sunny day and we snagged two of the last few empty parking spaces in the lot at 8:00 AM.

We decided to hike the Liberty Trail out and back. The two previous days of rain turned the first 2.5 miles or so of the trailnto a flowing stream. On our way down, we met a hiker who has a second home in the area. He said he had climbed Chocorua “hundreds” of times and had never seen Liberty Trail as wet as it was.

Notwithstanding the wetness, the climb itself was steady incline, but not unusually difficult until reaching the Jim Liberty Cabin after which it was white knuckle time. The last 0.2 miles to the summit involved on-all-fours rock scrambling on slick (in spots) open rock faces and steep, tough climbs.

On the summit, we talked with a gentleman who had a 48 over 70 patch sewed onto his backpack. He was 77 years old. What an inspiration!

By the time we ended our hike (tired), the parking lot was overflowing with vehicles.