Drone in the Wild - Attempting to Ascend the Franconia Ridge

11 AM. 2 hours late. On the road. Northern Bound. To the great White Mountains in New Hampshire.

The plan is to ascend the Franconia Ridge, which consists of 3 mountains, two 5,000 footers, Mt. Lafayette and Mt. Lincoln, and a 4,000 footer, Little Haystack. It's an 8.5 mile hike, and takes on average between 5 to 6 hours at a good pace, or much longer if not, so you want to start early, especially if you're not an avid hiker.

We arrive at close to 1PM, much later than I'd prefer. We then find out the trail is still quite icy, still has snow, and the rivers are quite high. Great.

The new plan is to hike the Falling Waters trail, and see if we can make it to the largest of the falls and then double back.

We begin by crossing the first river, I had sandals on, so it wasn't too bad for me, besides the shock of the icy freezing water rushing around my feet. My friends on the other hand had to take their shoes off and go barefoot. Oh, and my friend had to go back and pick up his dog and carry her across, she was not about that life.

We made it past the first crossing, dried our feet shortly and continued on.

After some more treacherous snow and ice hiking, and another stream crossing we made it to the large falls!

From there we turned around and began to double back. Once we got back, we headed North again up the Kancamagus Highway and further into the mountains, where I would try out flying my new drone! I'll leave you with some of the images I captured from my brief flight.

-Sean Gold

www.SeanGold.com
www.Instagram.com/SeanGoldPhotos