HikerAmiga
New member
This weekend trip to AMC’s Galehead Hut for me originated when a hiker friend, Cumulus posted and an invite on another forum and RLC subsequently invited me to join him for the hike and overnight hut stay. This was a few months ago and at the time I thought it a grand idea. More recently I discovered that it coincided with my eldest nephew’s graduation from Boston University but I made the decision to stick with my original commitment. Not sure how you folks view my decision of choosing leisurely pursuits over family, but this was my decision and after sending my regrets, I stuck to my original plans until Friday night when I arrived home from work at 7:05pm and felt sick to my stomach upon eating my dinner. Then when I saw the online weather report for the area with the rain forecasted for Saturday morning and thundershowers forecasted for Sunday PM, my nephew's graduation/dinner invite started making more sense for me. I called RLC and explained that I was inclined not to go after all and felt badly that he wouldn’t have a hiking partner on a hike this long-awaited hike. I especially felt badly when I discovered that 2 of our 5 person party couldn’t make it either. So I sucked it up and continued packing and miraculously, starting feeling much better.
That’s the prelude to this adventure from my perspective and to follow is the guts of the trip, again from my perspective.
HIKE UP:
- Coming up from south of Boston, rain at 5:30am through about 6am, slow traffic due to repaving of sections of I93
- By 7am, sky appeared to be clearing, rain diminishing and I felt much, much better about my decision to do the hut trip/hike
- Finally met RLC at Twin Mtn close to 9am where we were doing car spotting. He had dropped Cumulus off earlier (for a car spot) and was waiting for me to arrive.
- Started hiking just shy of 10am via Gale River Trail
- Trail was very dry for miles, easy grades, nice forest much of it parallel to the Gale River and/or it’s tributaries
- For about 1.5 miles into the hike, I smelled something 'funky' which RLC could not smell at all…I wondered if it was some wildlife lurking in the woods?
- Was a leisurely hike with lots of conversation and RLC often checked/reread the trail description and GPS coordinates and we made mental notes of these as we hiked. RLC estimated that we might be hiking 1 mile/hr and this was fine as we were in no rush and considering the excellent weather, we were fortunate to have, it made for a very pleasant hike
- The river crossings were not bad but at each, we took some time to figure out the best way to cross…poles were definitely helpful. A prior standing bridge at the 2nd crossing was out and RLC had forgotten having read until we saw evidence of the washed out bridge.
- At about 2900 ft elevation, we started to see snow on an off, slim monorail, soft/firmer snow, on an off.
- Then at the last .6 miles on the Garfield Ridge Trail to the hut, the on/off monorail was very annoying and much care needed to be taken to avoid post-holing through. Snowshoes would not have been helpful due to the on/off situation with bare and rocky spots in between the monorail sections.
HUT STAY:
I was ever so pleased to reach Galehead Hut as by this time, I needed a break. The warmth of the day had made me sweaty and I could hardly wait to take off the heavy pack and get a breather and get refreshed for a few hours before our continuing on to the Galehead summit.
We ate a late lunch/early dinner and basked in the sun for awhile. I noticed all the boy scouts and their leaders and knew what lay ahead of us for the night. I must say that I really enjoyed meeting them and chatting with them and hearing them sing and joke and interact with each other and their adult leaders. Good kids, I sensed they were. I had ample opportunity to quiz the hut caretaker too, ‘Emily’. I learned so much about her and asked some questions that I was long curious about. For example, I asked how at such a young age (that many of these croo are) could they whip up such wonderful meals? She laughed and explained that, no, they aren’t Culinary Arts students or even receive much training except a day’s worth of culinary training by the AMC, but that they get so much practice and guidance from more experienced croo that they catch on very quickly. She also explained that most ‘kitchen disasters’ can be corrected in roughly 15 minutes. Looking back to my experiences, I guess that’s true??
Took lots of pics of the panorama (pemi wilderness) and basked in the sun that evening. Later on, Cumulus showed up finally from his Garfield adventure and we had some quiet time getting reacquainted and talking about everything under the sun to include sharing some philosophical perspectives.
The hut was full to capacity to include a couple of extra Scout folks that slept in the main hut area on the floor. Therefore our bunkroom was completely occupied—the 3 of us and the rest were some Canadian hikers. My sleep was interrupted for half the night as I felt awfully warm and wound up not using my sleeping bag at all. Next morning I asked around and nearly all the occupants of that bunkroom had experienced the same through the night: warm and humid night.
The next morning RLC and Cumulus hiked up the .8 miles to the S. Twin summit. I did not as during the prior evening, I had already decided that I didn’t want to deal with the arduous fight uphill on the on/off monorail and had visions of returning during fairer weather to tackle S and N Twin. So I spent a good part of my morning at the hut socializing, relaxing and looking around this marvelous hut that is the AMC's Galehead hut, reconstructed in 1999-2000.
HIKE DOWN:
Hike down was pretty much uneventful except that at the 2nd crossing, I fell in a bit after losing my balance. Survived and learned a new lesson or two about water crossings techniques. Luckily it was a warm day and getting wet was nothing to despair about.
Trail conditions were pretty much the same as on the prior day though a bit of melting had occurred and I sensed the water levels a tad higher by late PM which is to be expected.
AT THE VALLEY:
Had an opportunity to stop by the Mountain Wanderer in Lincoln as I was looking for a copy of Forest and Crag. Steve Smith explained that it’s no longer in print so I’ll have to search elsewhere for it and possibly buy it used or borrow it. Dave Metsky was there and I enjoyed seeing Dave and chatting with him too. Got to see Drewski’s hiking sticks, one of which Russ recently posted about.
Well, that’s it in a nutshell for my Galehead Hut adventure.
Thanks for reading!
Happy trails!
Pics coming soon…
That’s the prelude to this adventure from my perspective and to follow is the guts of the trip, again from my perspective.
HIKE UP:
- Coming up from south of Boston, rain at 5:30am through about 6am, slow traffic due to repaving of sections of I93
- By 7am, sky appeared to be clearing, rain diminishing and I felt much, much better about my decision to do the hut trip/hike
- Finally met RLC at Twin Mtn close to 9am where we were doing car spotting. He had dropped Cumulus off earlier (for a car spot) and was waiting for me to arrive.
- Started hiking just shy of 10am via Gale River Trail
- Trail was very dry for miles, easy grades, nice forest much of it parallel to the Gale River and/or it’s tributaries
- For about 1.5 miles into the hike, I smelled something 'funky' which RLC could not smell at all…I wondered if it was some wildlife lurking in the woods?
- Was a leisurely hike with lots of conversation and RLC often checked/reread the trail description and GPS coordinates and we made mental notes of these as we hiked. RLC estimated that we might be hiking 1 mile/hr and this was fine as we were in no rush and considering the excellent weather, we were fortunate to have, it made for a very pleasant hike
- The river crossings were not bad but at each, we took some time to figure out the best way to cross…poles were definitely helpful. A prior standing bridge at the 2nd crossing was out and RLC had forgotten having read until we saw evidence of the washed out bridge.
- At about 2900 ft elevation, we started to see snow on an off, slim monorail, soft/firmer snow, on an off.
- Then at the last .6 miles on the Garfield Ridge Trail to the hut, the on/off monorail was very annoying and much care needed to be taken to avoid post-holing through. Snowshoes would not have been helpful due to the on/off situation with bare and rocky spots in between the monorail sections.
HUT STAY:
I was ever so pleased to reach Galehead Hut as by this time, I needed a break. The warmth of the day had made me sweaty and I could hardly wait to take off the heavy pack and get a breather and get refreshed for a few hours before our continuing on to the Galehead summit.
We ate a late lunch/early dinner and basked in the sun for awhile. I noticed all the boy scouts and their leaders and knew what lay ahead of us for the night. I must say that I really enjoyed meeting them and chatting with them and hearing them sing and joke and interact with each other and their adult leaders. Good kids, I sensed they were. I had ample opportunity to quiz the hut caretaker too, ‘Emily’. I learned so much about her and asked some questions that I was long curious about. For example, I asked how at such a young age (that many of these croo are) could they whip up such wonderful meals? She laughed and explained that, no, they aren’t Culinary Arts students or even receive much training except a day’s worth of culinary training by the AMC, but that they get so much practice and guidance from more experienced croo that they catch on very quickly. She also explained that most ‘kitchen disasters’ can be corrected in roughly 15 minutes. Looking back to my experiences, I guess that’s true??
Took lots of pics of the panorama (pemi wilderness) and basked in the sun that evening. Later on, Cumulus showed up finally from his Garfield adventure and we had some quiet time getting reacquainted and talking about everything under the sun to include sharing some philosophical perspectives.
The hut was full to capacity to include a couple of extra Scout folks that slept in the main hut area on the floor. Therefore our bunkroom was completely occupied—the 3 of us and the rest were some Canadian hikers. My sleep was interrupted for half the night as I felt awfully warm and wound up not using my sleeping bag at all. Next morning I asked around and nearly all the occupants of that bunkroom had experienced the same through the night: warm and humid night.
The next morning RLC and Cumulus hiked up the .8 miles to the S. Twin summit. I did not as during the prior evening, I had already decided that I didn’t want to deal with the arduous fight uphill on the on/off monorail and had visions of returning during fairer weather to tackle S and N Twin. So I spent a good part of my morning at the hut socializing, relaxing and looking around this marvelous hut that is the AMC's Galehead hut, reconstructed in 1999-2000.
HIKE DOWN:
Hike down was pretty much uneventful except that at the 2nd crossing, I fell in a bit after losing my balance. Survived and learned a new lesson or two about water crossings techniques. Luckily it was a warm day and getting wet was nothing to despair about.
Trail conditions were pretty much the same as on the prior day though a bit of melting had occurred and I sensed the water levels a tad higher by late PM which is to be expected.
AT THE VALLEY:
Had an opportunity to stop by the Mountain Wanderer in Lincoln as I was looking for a copy of Forest and Crag. Steve Smith explained that it’s no longer in print so I’ll have to search elsewhere for it and possibly buy it used or borrow it. Dave Metsky was there and I enjoyed seeing Dave and chatting with him too. Got to see Drewski’s hiking sticks, one of which Russ recently posted about.
Well, that’s it in a nutshell for my Galehead Hut adventure.
Thanks for reading!
Happy trails!
Pics coming soon…
