Piper, Belknap and Gunstock Mountains Loop

I'm usually more of a solo hiker. I like to listen to music and go my own speed (i.e. not annoy people/embarrass myself by being painfully slow and taking 3903490 breaks). I also tend to try and talk to people too much while hiking and I just tire myself out even more. But when these 2 morons asked me to go for a hike a few weeks ago, I decided it was time to start hiking with some friends. 

I warned them a lot though, and although Sean assured me he'd go slow and was "out of shape" (haha ok skinny guy), I actually believed Allocca when he said the same thing. 

I proposed doing a loop of Piper, Belknap and Gunstock mountains. Not a huge drive for them, but with decent elevation and mileage to make the trip worth it/make the hike epic. AND, it would enable me to knock 3 more mountains off the Belknap Range list. We met on Carriage Road (off Belknap Mountain Road, off 11A in Gilford), and after some stretching and promises of a long day by me, we headed out to attempt to find the trailhead. 

While we were stretching a car pulled up and joined our line of Nissans, and the guy in the car was pretty much walking alongside us as we started. I asked him if he knew where the trail started, and he said it was up ahead to the right. I said, "alright, I guess we'll just follow you," and thus began the awkwardness of accidentally starting a hike with a stranger. Sean started talking to him while I hung in the back and put headphones on, hoping he'd take off because we were too slow. At my first break, I figured the guy would keep going, but he stayed with us. I guess he was hiking with us now. 

We followed the red blazes on the only trail I saw all the way up. The trail was wetter than I was expecting and a little more immediately steep than I imagined. But it eventually flattened out a little and then starting climbing at a pretty decent slope again, but this time with exposed rocks and the beginnings of views. I was hurting much more than I expected on mountain 1 of 3, and I think it was partly because I was trying to be a part of the group rather than zoning out to music- that, and going faster than I wanted. Sean wasn't sweating and wasn't even breathing hard, and it turns out that the somewhat heavy, I-assumed-he'd-be-slow stranger (Matt) was in great hiking shape. Turns out he hiked all last summer and lost like 60 pounds doing it. He had hiked this before too, so it turned out to be quite good that we met up with him, since the guide we were following didn't help out a whole lot.

Eventually we reached the top of Piper Mountain, and it was pretty nice. 

Looking left/North at Belknap mountain

Looking south towards Crystal Lake

looking straight ahead and HDRed

One ugly crew.

I liked the top of Piper. It was mostly exposed with random trees sprouting everywhere, cairns and configurations of rocks everywhere (one was even a chair- Allocca is in it above), and solid views. This was a new view for me in hiking the Belknaps, and I liked it. There were probably 10 or so people up there too, which was new for me this year, since at most I've seen 1 or 2 on hikes I've done. 

Matt decided to really go for it and headed out towards Whiteface while we sat a little longer and talked to some helpful strangers who told us where to go next. One even gave Sean his number in case he got lost. It's always amazing how nice and helpful people you meet on a mountain can be, especially considering how crappy people often are in the streets. 

After eating some snacks and chugging some water, we headed toward Belknap, following yellow blazes if I remember correctly. We joked that we were so slow that Matt would catch up with us. He did. He did Whiteface FAST. After losing some of our elevation, the trail starting going back up and we got what I would say was easily the best view of the day, and one of the best in all of the Belknaps- a ridge with a bunch of exposed rock, pretty much perfectly in between Piper and Belknap.

God bless you HDR.

If Sean had a blog, this would be his main picture

This view was incredible to me too, because I had hiked 4 days earlier and was excited at budding leaves and what looked like the beginning of summer. It rained pretty much every day in between these hikes, and standing here with this view, I was blown away at how green everything was. 3 days or so of rain sandwiched between 2 hot and sunny days, and boom, it was summer. It was so green and glorious. 

At some point, we turned right onto white blazes instead of continuing to follow yellow (or it was the other way around with the colors... man, I should write these posts less than 3 weeks after I go on these hikes). The sharp right turn immediately took us up, but the trail was significantly more interesting and pretty than the trip up Piper. There was some ridge stuff, and then eventually the trail took us into deeper woods with lots of climbing. Belknap is the highest of these mountains, and I sure was reminded that while wheezing all the way up it.

I lost my group after a surprise break, and headed towards the radio tower at the top of Belknap, running into other people who said they hadn't seen anyone in hours. Uh oh.

Walking back, I found them- they had turned right towards a VISTA (a word I learned on this trip for "view") at a section of exposed rock shortly before the tower. Definitely go that way if you do this hike, since there are some nice views up there.

We sat and had our lunches. Matt ate granola bars, I ate half of a week old sandwich I bought at a gas station on the ride up that wasn't good and made me feel gross (I usually just eat granola bars), Sean had a turkey sandwich that consisted of turkey and bread and nothing else, and Allocca ate freaking spaghetti. "Really? Spaghetti on a hike?" I said. "Hell yea" he said as he set his MRE in the sun to start heating up.

our lunch view

We made it to the top of Belknap and climbed up the radio tower for the high point of this area. While views were obstructed by towers and wires, they were still pretty amazing. It was neat being at the highest point of probably a solid 20 mile radius. We left quickly though, as the wind was pretty insane up there and we were freezing pretty much immediately.

Shortly after starting the trip to Gunstock (which I'm pretty sure was a blue blazed trail), we took a small side trail to another vista, and this one was pretty amazing. We could even see Washington waaaaay in the distance (pretty much in the dead center of this picture). Rich had taken the train up to Washington that day, so I texted him and told him I was looking at him.

The trail we were following crossed over another trail at some point. We followed the one we were on, but Matt said we would actually be coming back to this spot and following the intersecting trail right, to go down to the top of Carriage Road. I'm not sure where the other direction went... It might have been an alternate route to one of the mountains...

Eventually we came to a clearing with picnic tables and 2 small monuments, telling me we were very close to reaching our third peak. 

With one last steep pitch, we were on top of Gunstock. Being on top of ski mountains in the summer isn't rare for me, as I hiked Tecumseh last summer, but it's still a neat feeling. We walked over to the lodge to sit down and get the highest view we could. Seeing houses and Gunstock buildings after seeing nothing but trees and lakes before made this the worst of the three views, but as you can see, it was still pretty nice. Look at those weird clouds too! That was pretty much it for clouds that day.

We stopped and posed for some horrible pictures too. This was the best and worst. From left to right, Allocca, me, Matt the stranger, Sean.

2 people who work at apple, and I'm the one wearing the apple shirt

My feet and back killed, but I was pretty high on the fact that we had mostly accomplished the goal, so I was excited to get back and call it a successful day. About 20 minutes in, we had to stop and wait for about 20 minutes while Allocca held back puke.

He didn't know if he had to throw up, he just knew he didn't feel good at all. I wonder if it was eating hot spaghetti while hiking 3 mountains on a nearly cloudless 70 degree day? Hmm....

He was eventually ok, and we headed down, turning right at the trail we had intersected earlier. It had some nice views through the still budding trees.

Shortly after this picture was taken, Allocca wiped out hard on some wet rock. He had a wet butt the rest of the trip.

It was glorious- I wish I had somehow been taking a picture when it happened, because I saw the whole thing, and his body was completely horizontal in the air at one point. It was AWESOME.

In hindsight, part of me wished we had followed the guide and done the mountains in the opposite order from how we did them. This trail was much more rocky and interesting than the hike up Piper, including sections of stairs. 

However, the trail brought us out to this building and eventually a very long walk down a very boring road (the upper part of Carriage Road). Some people park up here, but I believe the gate closes at 6, and either way, unless you park 1 car at the start of the red trail up Piper and one here, you're going to have to either walk up or down this road. I'll always prefer down, especially since it was pretty steep, and nothing is worse than climbing up a steep hill with no woods or differentiation. 

Right before our boring walk started, we got one last view that was fairly glorious. The sun was in full swing, a slight breeze was blowing, and I had just put Olafur Arnalds on my ipod, making this view the most sad and epic thing ever. 

Allocca mid-stride is weird looking

We weren't too high up, and a lot of trees were blocking the view, but getting one last blast of beauty on such a nice day really ended the trip well. I couldn't help but notice the older couple sitting with the view and got a little sentimental (damn you Oladur Arnalds). 

We walked down the horrible road and got back to our cars. It was weird seeing Matt off, especially since none of us ever even got his last name. I left it as a "well, maybe I'll see you on another hike someday" and off he drove. I've never done that before- met someone randomly, spent like 5 hours with them and that was it. We shared a bunch of laughs and he was a very nice guy, but that was it. Very odd just having a trail buddy disappear like that, but from what I hear of Appalachian Trail hikers, this is pretty normal in the world of hiking. Oh well. Thanks for your help, Matt. You're now part of my journey to earning my Belknap Range patch, and you'll forever be in our memories. 

Hike time: I didn't pay much attention, but around 4.5-5 hours

Distance: Just about 5 miles from online accounts

Elevation gain: A little over 2,000 feet

Albums listened to: Only Owen- "Ghost Town" and sporadic other things. Too many breaks, too much talking.

currently listening to: Shady Bard- "Trials"