Winter Sunrise on the Old Bridle Path

I set out from my car at the Old Bridle Path trailhead at 3:30 in the morning on November 19th, 2025. October and November had been extremely snowy and cold in the White Mountains, and I was hoping to sneak in an early winter/late fall sunrise hike on Franconia Ridge. I had a great hike and took some photos I really like, but I also learned some things about decision-making along the way.

My original goal when I planned the trip was a photo at sunrise from the summit of Mount Liberty. I wanted a shot looking north along Franconia Ridge with the east-facing slopes glowing in the sunrise. As I usually do, I obsessively checked the Higher Summits Forecast from the Mount Washington Observatory leading up to the hike and was thrilled to see cold weather and clear skies for Wednesday morning. There was even a forecasted undercast around sunrise. Here’s where I made my first error in judgment.

Hoping to have the best chance of being above the undercast at sunrise, I changed my plans to climbing Mount Lafayette on the Old Bridle Path. Although this is a longer hike, the trailhead is at a higher elevation at the top of Franconia Notch, so I would be able to get above 4,000 feet and the treeline with less hiking. In theory, this would give me the best chances of being above the clouds as the sun rose.

I made great time through the snow-covered woods and was quickly climbing the ridge that curls up to Greenleaf Hut. After an hour and a half, the frozen hut slowly appeared through the dark, covered in rime ice and surrounded by big drifts of snow. I was in heaven—I love hiking in the winter through trees covered in snow.

I stopped at the hut to put on my snowshoes and kept climbing past the lake. As soon as I cleared the treeline, I was rocked by strong winds and the visibility dropped down to just a few feet as clouds rolled over the top of the mountain. I could see the eastern sky lightening and knew I only had about half an hour until sunrise, so I had a decision to make. My goal was still a sunrise photo along the ridge, and if the top of the mountain was in the clouds, there would be no sunrise to photograph.

With the low visibility, extreme cold, and blowing snow and ice obscuring the trail and covering the cairns, I was worried about losing the trail in the dark. I made the difficult decision to turn around. I hung out for a few more minutes taking some photos across the notch to the Kinsmans and then trudged dejectedly down the trail.

I was soon past the hut and descending the Old Bridle Path back to the car. The woods were beautiful with an impressive amount of ice and snow caking the trees. There are several sections along this trail where the trees drop away and you have beautiful views down Franconia Ridge to your left and across the notch to the Kinsman Range and Mount Moosilauke to your right. As the sun rose, the far peaks were bathed in beautiful orange alpenglow, and I started berating myself for turning around. All I could picture was how beautiful this sunrise would have been from the top of the ridge. I could even see the summit of Mount Liberty, my original goal, peeking out above the ridgeline bathed in sunlight.

I always get this feeling when the conditions are as good as they were this morning that there might not be another morning like this all winter. I live a few hours away from these mountains and have a small child, so getting up to New Hampshire for a hike isn’t easy, and I try not to take it for granted. All I could think about while I kept hiking downhill was how this might be the only time this winter with beautiful alpenglow at sunrise on the mountains this covered in snow.

I stopped and dug my tripod out of my pack to take the photos I could take from where I was, and as I write this about two weeks later, I’m convinced I was being too hard on myself. First of all, I absolutely made the best decision from the perspective of safety, and that has to be the first and only way I measure my decisions. So, no regrets there. But from a photography perspective, there’s a good chance had I kept hiking, I would have had an enjoyable hike but spent most of the morning inside the clouds and missed out on the beautiful sunrise I got to watch over the snow-frosted trees, the Kinsman Range, and Mount Moosilauke. Even if there isn’t another morning like this for me all winter, I will still love these photos and look back on this hike as a fantastic morning spent out in the woods.

To prove this point, I even got this photo of the snowy forest, Old Bridle Path ridge, and the summit of Mount Lafayette covered in clouds.

The only thing I would have actually done differently in retrospect is kept to my original plan of hiking Mount Liberty. When I left my hotel at 3:15am to drive to the trailhead, I looked up and saw a completely cloudless sky. This should have been a strong signal that there was no undercast and that my original plan of alpenglow along Franconia Ridge was the way to go. Regardless, I’m thrilled with the photos that I came home with and will channel my frustration and FOMO into motivation to make the time to get out for more hikes the rest of this winter.