Trip report
HIKE FOR EQUALITY: Cathedral Ledge
Hiking/Walk DATE: 06/23/2019 - 06/23/2019
Trip/Event Location: North Conway, NH
US
Trip Leader(s): Gandalf
Max # People: 30
Trip Guiding / Event Fee: No, I will not be asking participants for money
Difficulty Level: Easy to Moderate
This year’s Pride Hike is run in association with North Conway’s first ever White Mountains Pride Festival!
Celebrate Gay Pride with Mike on this EASY TO MODERATE 5.2 mile loop hike
...We are meeting at 10:00AM at Echo Lake State Park. Please note that there is a $4 entry free to enter and park at Echo Lake State Park. We’ll be meeting at the trailhead kiosk inside the park. I’ll be wearing a GO hat and have a rainbow flag sticking outside his pack.
Trailhead is at Echo Lake State Park is located off from West Side Road.
From I-93: Exit 23 onto Route 104 East. Follow Route 104 east to Route 25 North. Turn left onto NH 16 North to North Conway. Follow signs to Echo Lake State Park off River Road.
From I-95: Take Route 16 North to North Conway and turn left onto River Road. Follow signs to Echo Lake State Park.
You can also use Google Maps to get directions.
Trip Report/Photos
Warm sun, beautiful day, and 16 LGBTQ hikers with rainbow flags. Who could ask for more?
Cathedral Ledge [1159 ft.] is far better known to rock climbers than hikers, but it has good views from ledges accessible to ordinary folks! The loop made for an excellent short summer adventure that was tailored to suit this year’s HIKE FOR EQUALITY! The loop was 5.2 miles round trip with 722' elevation gain.
We met at the Echo Lake State Park beach area for 10:00AM. Most participants already had a rainbow flag for their packs. For those that did not, Mike distributed to stick out of their packs. We were under sunny skies, temperature around 80 degrees with a breeze. A perfect summer day!
It was nice to meet LGBTQ folks from the greater North Conway region for the first time and get reacquainted with our GO members from Maine, Massachusetts, and even as far as New York! What a fine collection of people for our first White Mountains Pride Hike!
It’s a quick walk to the lake where we appreciated the sheer magnitude of the cliff faces over-shadowing the lake!
We followed Echo Lake Trail to get to Bryce Path. We took the right onto Bryce Path. We came to the junction of Bryce Path, Bryce Link and Whitehorse Ledge trails. From this point on, the trail became steeper and more difficult. We're no strangers to steeps. Still, it slowed our ascent. It finally relented when we reached the col between Cathedral and Whitehorse ledges. We were glad to be done with this section of trail, short as it is. Everyone was relieved when I reminded everyone we were not going back down that way!
At the col we took some time to catch our breath. The trail is comfy at first on our final ascent up to Catherdral Ledge. That is, until we started the last short push to Cathedral Ledge. Wow, we thought the previous steep section was tough! It took us about 15 minutes just to get up the approximately two-tenths of a mile section to the ledges.
It’s important to celebrate pride in the extreme places and the mundane. Every person who celebrates is another example of who queer people are and what we can do. It’s a chance to remind the world, and ourselves, that our potential is limitless and is in no way inhibited by our sexuality or gender identity.
We reached the top of Cathedral Ledge Road and felt the breeze once more. Since you can drive up there, there were quite a lot of other people enjoying the views. From there it was a short walk through stunted pines to reach the top of Cathedral Ledge. The fenced in open area at the top of the ledge provides some incredible views of the White Mountains and Saco River Valley below! On the other side of downtown North Conway the slopes of Cranmore Ski Area appeared. We even caught sight of a few rock climbers going up Cathedral Ledge.
We took a break up to soak in the views. We had no lost or misplaced souls on our trek. In fact, with our rainbow flags flapping in the breeze, our souls were filled with pride and appreciated the words of support from the people we met during the day! It was great hike that was associated with White Mountains Pride this year. We can be open and out anywhere, and that means hiking up mountains with rainbow flags flapping in the breeze, meeting our gay brothers/sisters and our allies. It’s good to know we are not the only gay people hiking that mountain on a certain day.
We descended using the Cathedral Ledge Road. Overall safer and easier on the knees. Near the bottom of the road, we made a turn on the Bryce Link that led us to Bryce Path and then on to the Echo Lake Trail where we continued where we had left off at the start of our trek.
DJ made a reservation for lunch at nearby Flatbread Pizza, one of the sponsors of White Mountains Pride. We enjoyed a well-earned beer and pizza!
Many thanks to all for joining us and for making the day so pleasurable!
GayOutdoors will have a booth at the White Mountains Pride Festival on Saturday, June 29. Please visit our booth and enjoy the fun entertainment planned for the day!
Jon and I have many other spirited hikes posted on the website for this summer so we hope you can join us!
HAPPY PRIDE!!!
Mike
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