It was a little late in the season, but in mid-October it seemed like a final hike of fall was in order. It started with a direct ascent of Cannon Mountain from the Tramway parking lot. We avoided the overcrowded summit, took some pictures of the beautiful Franconia Ridge from a lookout vista, and continued along our way to North Kinsman Mountain.
Although I had remembered reading about the Cannonballs, I had forgotten to account for them in our proposed hike plan. They were a bit exhausting. I believe there were three of them in all, each one seemingly like ridge that we had to climb up and over. When we finally made it over the North Kinsman, we were relieved by the smooth terrain from their to South Kinsman. North Kinsman had a vista looking east to the Franconia Ridge, while South Kinsman had a bald summit with awesome views.
While we had originally planned to backtrack over the Cannonballs to a side trail down the side of Cannon mountain back to the car, we decided to call some friends for a lift while on South Kinsman. We headed back over North Kinsman and down a nice, gradual four mile side trail to the west side of the ridge. Three more 4,000 footers in the bag, and a wonderful 12+ mile hike to round out the fall.
I hiked Cannon again with a group of people on a cold, COLD early winter day in late November. Although it wasn't even technically winter yet, I considered it my first winter 4,000 footer of the season. This was a hike of Cannon via the Lonesome Lake trail. The views of the Franconia Ridge were nice and clear from the top
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