Copy/Repost Hike

On Saturday, June 16th, I headed up early to the North Twin Trailhead, since noone else had signed up and I was meeting Martin on top of North Twin later that morning.  I arrived at a little before 8AM, got ready and started up the trail.

Martin had started hiking out of Lincoln Woods Thursday evening, camping at Franconia Brook Falls East, before climbing Owl's Head (4025') on Friday and camping near Galehead Friday evening.  He summited Galehead (4024') before heading up to the Twins, where we later met.

The trail up to North Twin was very easy for the first couple of miles with several brook crossings.  After that the trail's grade steepened moderately.  By about 10AM I was finally reaching limited views of the Presidential Range and shortly after that nice open ledges below is treed summit.  I reached the summit (4761') about 10 minutes later.  I headed out to the view and had breakfast, while I waited for Martin to show up.  The views over the Pemigewasset Wilderness and over to the Franconia Ridge were fantastic (my previous ascent of the Twins was totally clouded over).  With full sun and virtually no wind, the black flies were voracious...but they were less so in the shaded woods, so I paced along the ridge watching for Martin, knowing he would be along before 11AM or so.

Martin showed up right about 10:45AM and we headed to the view, so he could take a break.  This was his 34th peak.  Since the flies were kinda bad it wasn't long before we decided to continue on.  We headed off the summit and followed the N. Twin Spur Trail to South Twin (4902'), where we arrived at about 11:40AM.  Amazingly enough we ran into a number of day hikers, who were doing an out-and-back from Gale River already.  We stayed on the summit only for a short time, since we had apparently stumbled upon a wasp nest somewhere in the rocks and we were getting attacked!  Along the way out to Mt. Guyot (4580') we stopped for lunch in a clearing just off the trail.  It was about 12:45PM.  By this time there were dark clouds that were rolling over the Pemigewasset Wilderness...this was kinda welcome as it kept heat down alittle.  After lunch we continued on to the junction with the Bondcliff Trail.  It was early and we didn't want to get to the tentsite that early, so we decided to make the side trip over to Mt. Zealand first.  This was an additional 3 miles out-and-back, but Martin needed that peak as well and so we just did it.  It was about 2PM when we summited Zealand (4260'), which is one of the least remarkable summits in the Whites...aside from it's nicely carved plaque!  We headed back to Guyot and over it's shoulder peak along the Bondcliff Trail on the way to the Guyot tentsite.  We made it by 3:30PM and headed down the spur trail to the platforms to find the caretaker.  All of the platforms were already taken and choices were to sleep in the shelter or in the overflow area up on the ridge.  After filling up on water we decided that the overflow area would be nicer.

We set up camp in a semi-secluded area just large enough for two.  Martin was tent camping and I was using a bivy and tarp.  It worked out well.  We relaxed for a while before making dinner and afterwards we headed up to West Bond (4540') at around 7PM for the sunset.  About 10 other guys were eventually on the summit, but it was fairly overcast with low clouds occasionally sweeping across the peaks.  Views of Bond and Bondcliff were nice, but almost all the other surrounding peaks were clouded over with slivers of light occcasionally poking through.  At 8:30 we decided that we weren't going to see the sunset, so we headed back to camp and called it a night.

In the morning we awoke around 7AM, made breakfast and broke camp.  The night on the ridge had been chilly, but nice...and there were still clouds just overhead.  By 8AM we started up to Mt. Bond (4698') and we reached the summit in about half-an-hour.  It was one of those beautiful mornings where all the clouds were hanging below us with just the major peaks poking through.  In fact, initially you couldn't even see Bondcliff below.  We decided to wait here to see if the cloud cover would clear a bit and by 9AM miraculously Bondcliff was visible again!  We started off of Bond and headed over along the rocky ridge on the way to Bondcliff (4265'), when we finally reached the summit at 9:40AM...Martin's 38th peak!  The views were wonderful with the valleys clearing.  It was also about the time that the black flies were starting to become active again!  By 10AM we were heading off the peak for the long trek back to Lincoln Woods.  The trail was fairly easy as it winds off of the ridge and we had a lunchbreak just before re-joining the Wilderness Trail at noon.  On the return we stopped off at the Franconia Brook Falls to cool off.  Martin took the plunge and I splashed enough water over my body to remove much of the salt and sweat.  The water was numbingly cold still!  Afterwards, we continued back to the parking lot, which we reached by 2:30PM.

We stopped by Gordi's afterwards to a nice meal and then stopped off for ice cream, before Martin drove me back to my car in Twin Mountain.

Thanks Martin for joining me on another wonderful Bonds trip!  This was my fourth time across this spectacular ridge and Martin's first.  Martin tagged another 7 peaks with only 10 left for him!

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