Mount Rowe

In my conquest to hike all the mountains in the Belknap Range as a way to get stronger and sort of in shape to try and hike 4,000 footers, I hit up Rowe a few weeks ago. Rowe is the northernmost of the range, and for my billions of blog readers, you may remember that I tried to hike it last winter, failing miserably. This time I wasn't stupid though, and started from the parking lot behind Gilford Elementary school, following this guide for trail changes. The entrance to the trail is in the back righthand corner of the parking lot, to the left of a small soccer/multipurpose field. It's basically a dirt road to start. 

It immediately became woods, with a great wooden bridge over marshland. 

To the right was Gunstock and Belknap looming over me. I found it odd that it didn't look at all like I was hiking up a mountain- Rowe looked like a small hill in the woods from where I was standing. 

The trail immediately split, and I went right, following the blue trail, which immediately gained in elevation. 

The trail was fairly boring and wide at first. A guy riding his bike with his dog came down the hill. He said he rode all the way up, with the downhill return being his reward. While I would love the down part, the up part sounded like a really horrible thing to me.

Shortly after a short downhill section and a stream crossing, the trail split, and I followed the yellow trail to the left. This was quite hard to see- I'm not sure if they just haven't cleaned it up yet, or if it's always this subtle, but this is what it looked like:

The trail immediately was pretty much vertical. The guide had warned me, but I was surprised at just how steep it was with little footing. My lungs and pathetic leg muscles weren't ready for this at all. 

Eventually, the steepness became more gradual, as I entered into very thick, pine-forrest like terrain. I always love when thick forrest comes out to huge sections of exposed rock, and this had a few nice spots like that.

I was surprised at how long this hike was taking me, since the guide had nothing about mileage on it (just elevation change). Eventually, I came out to a very obvious grassy path, turning right. 

From here, the trail became more obvious and extremely single track-like. I felt like I should be on my mountain bike, not walking (although if I was on my bike, I'd probably be walking, as I hate biking uphill more than anything). 

Here is Gunstock and Belknap, much closer now:

I ended up on a big section of rock with arrows everywhere, a small cairn and some trail markers in the distance. It looked like this was part of a loop trail to take me to Gunstock, so I turned left (the opposite direction of Gunstock) and continued up.

This led me to more exposed rock and the feeling that I was very close to the top.

I was right. Here is the parking lot to Gunstock, with the shadow of the mountain.

I kept going towards the tower, assuming that if anything could be considered the top of Rowe, it would be that. There was a sign there: 

I took a terrible picture of myself,

and began heading back to where the views were. I came across an older woman wearing shorts and a t-shirt who looked like she was jogging up the mountain. I was freezing wearing the same thing, and she looked like she was about to drop dead. Temperatures had gone down considerably, and I was now being hit with some fairly decent wind. 

This is a small mountain, and I'm guessing it doesn't get hiked a ton. The views weren't anything amazing, but they were still pretty nice, especially to someone who felt like he was going to throw up on the way up (don't eat garlicy pizza before a hike). Here's a panorama that worked better than usual- from left to right- Winnipesaukee in the distance, the Gunstock parking lot, and Belknap and Gunstock mountains. 

(click for bigger)

I liked this view the most: 

Obligatory awkward face picture to prove I was there:

Someone's lost hat, blowing in the wind:

So emo.

On the way down, I realized just how much of a biking trail this trail was. Look at this bench cut!

Don't wander off trail too much here though- there are offshoots everywhere. It's hard to find info about Rowe online, so who knows where the trails go. Rowe was at one time an additional ski mountain though, so a lot of the trails could be part of that. One took me to a ghetto table built onto the side of a tree, 

with this hanging on a tree:

WTF? 

Looks like an eggplant or pepper carved to look like a dead animal. I'm confused and scared. 

I absolutely love this picture even though it's done through HDR trickery. My view was much more bright and less colorful than this, but seeing leaves starting to come through made this hike a lot prettier than I was prepared for.

And here's the view from the top through HDR and Snapseed editing:

yea iphoneography!

It started to get dark on the way down, but I reached the parking lot before it was really that bad. This was my first hike since Whiteface over a month ago, and I feel like even though I had done a few before that, this being the biggest yet, and it felt like truly the start to a summer of hiking. I'm disappointed with my commitment last summer, and have made a new goal to hike at least 20 mountains, with 12 of them being 4,000 footers this year. Secretly, I'd like to do a lot more, but I made the goal a long time ago and I think it's a good start. Listening to the epic sounds of Maybeshewill while the sun went down on me, worried that I was never going to get in good enough shape to do the amount of hiking I want to do without dying, I got a little serious. I stood and admired the marshland, letting the music really drive my thoughts. I started to really believe that this hike was the one to jumpstart me. This was the one to get my summer going. I thought to myself, "this hurt a lot, but you have to start somewhere." And this hike was my start. 

When I got back to the parking lot, relieved I had knocked another mountain off and I would soon be sitting in my car with the windows down blasting sweet music on my drive home, I looked at the ground and saw this, written in chalk directly behind my car. I hadn't seen it before, and smiled at the wonderful irony of it all. 

Hike time: About 2 and a half hours

Breaks: Too many

Albums listened to: 

O Brother- "The Death Of Day" (weird and grungy, but mixed with solid post-rock)

Olafur Arnalds- "...And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darkness" (absolutely              

heartbreakingly beautiful- perfect for the top of a mountain)

Maybeshewill- "I Was Here For A Moment, Then I Was Gone" (gorgeous and grand, especially towards the end. It ended my hike perfectly)

currently listening to- Panic At The Disco- "Vices And Virtues"