Solo. 18/48. 39 at the trailhead, high of 70 today with lots of sunshine but it’s hazy.


There were some other cars in the Gale River Trail lot this morning, including another solo hiker man that started out shortly before I did. I lost count of all of the people I saw today- maybe 20? Only 5 I saw on the trail, the rest were around the hut, summit, or junctions to go elsewhere. The majority of them had heavy backpacking packs, so I imagine they were doing multi day treks.

The first 2 miles of the hike were nice and flat, sometimes dirt, sometimes stream bed type hiking, which was near to the stream- nice to listen to. The third mile was kinda lazy side-hilling with a little bit of elevation, some roots and rocks. Following that the uphill in earnest began, but it really wasn’t bad- a rocky push followed by an easy uphill or even almost flat, rinse repeat a few times and before I knew it I was already at the hut. The trail has been well-loved with a lot of natural stone steps, always nice to see!

I’ve never seen a hut here in NH before so I was pretty surprised at how large they are. The hut is closed up due to covid but there were a couple of people milling around or sitting on the porch having snacks. I walked through and headed for the true summit, .4mi was a breeze. I tagged the summit cairn, stopped by the viewpoint (very nice), then returned to the hut where I chatted with some other hikers for a bit and had my summit beer. A chipmunk damn near ran into my open pack so, safe to say they aren’t afraid of people.

I backtracked the way I came and made good time on the way out. This was a fun hike.