blaze
Active member
Date of Hike: Sunday 2/15
Trail Conditions: packed snow on Gale River Road. Light dusting at the bottom of Garfield Trail, increasing to a deeper fresh layer (up to ~10 inches) up high on Garfield Trail and Garfield Ridge Trail. We saw some postholes and signs of a (recent, but prior to today) barebooter, apparently working fairly hard at higher elevations.
Trail is now well packed. Stream crossings at the Gale River bridge outages were still fine. One brook crossing on the lower Garfield Trail looked a bit iffy, looked like somebody had punched one leg through the ice.
Special Equipment Required: I counted nine people on the trail today, including our group of five. Of those nine, eight were wearing snowshoes. Even with a now well packed trail, snowshoes are still my recommendation.
Comments: As prior posters have noted, there is no plowed parking area at the west end of Gale River Road. So we parked a short distance to the east, at the Rt 3/Trudeau Road junction, aka Five Corners.
Thanks to Daymond, Gerry, Kathryn, and Victoria for a fine day. We all summited, a new winter 4k for four out of five of us. Views were apparently great today - everywhere else in the Whites. We saw nothing from the top!
Trail Conditions: packed snow on Gale River Road. Light dusting at the bottom of Garfield Trail, increasing to a deeper fresh layer (up to ~10 inches) up high on Garfield Trail and Garfield Ridge Trail. We saw some postholes and signs of a (recent, but prior to today) barebooter, apparently working fairly hard at higher elevations.
Trail is now well packed. Stream crossings at the Gale River bridge outages were still fine. One brook crossing on the lower Garfield Trail looked a bit iffy, looked like somebody had punched one leg through the ice.
Special Equipment Required: I counted nine people on the trail today, including our group of five. Of those nine, eight were wearing snowshoes. Even with a now well packed trail, snowshoes are still my recommendation.
Comments: As prior posters have noted, there is no plowed parking area at the west end of Gale River Road. So we parked a short distance to the east, at the Rt 3/Trudeau Road junction, aka Five Corners.
Thanks to Daymond, Gerry, Kathryn, and Victoria for a fine day. We all summited, a new winter 4k for four out of five of us. Views were apparently great today - everywhere else in the Whites. We saw nothing from the top!
