› Forums › Flags on the 48 Information › General Discussion › Reports from the 48 Flagsites! › Reply To: Reports from the 48 Flagsites!
Cannon Mountain
What a great day! Cathie and myself agreed to meet the rest of our hiking group at the Lafayette Campground around 8:30. We met up with Marianne and her group and after introductions and some joking around about the flagpole, we began our ascent up the Lonesome Lake Trail. We enjoyed getting to know the others in the group better and took in some nice scenery at a break by the lake. We then worked our way up to the Kinsman Ridge Trail and began our summit push. We arrived at the observation tower at about 11:40 after answering several questions from curious hikers along the way. We ended up wedging the pole into the rails at the top of the tower and used C-clamps to anchor it in place. At 11:59, amid cheers, we raised our pole and the Flag flew fully extended for the next two hours. The wind was whipping for most of the afternoon and was quite chilly for those tram users that came up in t-shirts and shorts. Many people though, asked questions and took many photos with the flag and the Franconia Range in the background. We for certain could see the flag on Mt. Flume and may have seen the Flag on Garfield at the concrete foundation and maybe the flag on North Kinsman. Did anyone see ours? We had a friend who parked along I-93 to take pictures and from the valley he said he could see ours and Mt. Flume with binoculars. Alas we took everything down at 2:00 and made our way down the mountain. The AMC SouthEastern Mass Chapter trail maintinance volunteers were working on the Lonesome Lake trail and we thanked them for the job they were doing and they thanked us for flying the flag. I guess we sort of helped each other out. Anyways we made it back to the campground and then we were off to the Woodstock Inn. There we swapped stories with several other groups and finally got to match some screen names with faces. This truly was an excellent event and I was happy to be a small part of it. Greg, RJ and Frodo (dear lord please don’t strike me dead for complimenting a Yankees fan 😛 sorry could not resist) all deserve a round of applause for making this event a reality. We got the chance to do what we enjoy doing and honor those who cannot be with us today.