Our group met at the Gale River Trail parking lot at 8:30 am. The day boded to be clear and warm. By 8:45, we had 11 guys. We left in 3 cars for the North Twin trail. We tried to get to this trailhead by the forest roads shown on the map, but they were gated and overgrown. We had to go the long way around, back to the highway, and then off on another side road. By 8:50, we had arrived and got underway. 

In the course of our approach to North Twin, our first objectives, we encountered crossings of the not-so-little Little River, whose levels were unexpectedly high. People experimented with various approaches to accomplishing the crossing - clinging to rocks and moving between them slowly after much thought; leaping among the rocks quickly; shimmying over trees that had fallen across the stream; and most pragmatically, taking shoes of and just walking across. The crossings took some time, but we arrived in the vicinity of North Twin's peak and its two great lookout ledges shortly after noon.  We enjoyed them - the visibility and views were great, and the temps pleasingly cool in the breeze. As fast as the day had warmed, our altitude compensated. 

After hanging around for a while and eating some food, we moved on to the South Twin peak - arriving at 1:15 and spending a few minutes to the 360-degree views from the bare summit. Especially impressive to us was how pitifully small and low Galehead Mountain appeared to be down below us to the west. We were at almost 4900 feet, and Galehead's height was just over 4000. Taking us a bit by surprise, a few manned gliders zoomed by, a notion somewhat incongruous with the concept of being in the backcountry. It was beautiful nonetheless. As we undertook the steep descent to Galehead Hut, it wasn't long before the tide turned and Galehead started again to look like a mountain whose peak hovered above us. 

We got to the Galehead hut a little after 2pm, took a deserved break and replenished our water bottles. We then took a 15-minute jaunt up to the Galehead summit. It was wooded and offered us no view, but did have a lookout ledge. We enjoyed looking both down at the hut, and up to the Twin Mountain ridge looming almost 900 feet above us. By 3pm we were back at the hut, where we replenished our water and set forth westbound on the Garfield Ridge Trail.

The Garfield Ridge Trail was rough and rocky, with numerous ups and downs -slowing us down a bit. By 3:30, however, we reached the Gale River Trail, our path back down to our spotted cars. Before descending though, five of us took a short side trip to bushwhack East Garfield Ridge Peak, a New Hampshire Hundred Highest peak a quarter of a mile west of the trail junction. It was a first bushwhack for most of the group, and people plunged into the thick spruce with commitment, being careful to keep track of our heading with the help of a compass. By 4:00 we reached the summit, and Markus spotted the summit canister and extricated the register, which we all signed. Victorious, we reversed the bushwhack and rejoined the larger group at 4:25. The bushwhack was challenging, but inflicted no more than a few minor scratches on us.

We finished the hike around 6pm. We had traveled just short of 13 miles, with 4175 feet of elevation gain, and ticked off four listed peaks. Not a bad day's work at all, for a group of great guys on an almost perfect day! Thanks to all of 10 you for sharing in this adventure!

Enjoy the photo highlights below. For a full slide show, you can go to: