Like a turtle, I'm slowly making my way down this winter list. I'd really hoped to reach #45 on my list this year. Our Bonds-Zealand trip on winter's last weekend, would've made that possible. After a winter storm we realized that was out of reach. Garfield though, maybe.
We parked at the southern entrance to Gale River Road finding one snow covered car in the lot. I knew what that meant, another day breaking trail. Cath Goodwin says one should chant, "it's fun breaking trai, it's fun breaking trail." Sometimes I chant something else.
I was joined by the Wolfboro gang of Jeb, Bob, Bill and Stanley the wonder dog. We breezed the 1.2 miles to Garfield's trailhead in 30 minutes. The path showed signs of two hikers one in snowshoes and the other barebooting from yesterday. I led the way over a crusty mix of snow. I love that ridge at the beginning of Garfield. The snow wasn't nearly as deep as I'd expected. We crunched along at a nice pace.
On my first winter attempt of Mount Garfield 4 years ago, we'd found the brook crossing nearly impassable. Today, the snow bridges held up as we all walked across. Stanley balked a little at the sound of rushing water under the ice. The snow was getting deeper but still had a nice consistancy.The faint tracks ahead stopped where the pair had turned back. Now we began taking turns leading the way and breaking trail. The snow still wasn't as deep as I imagined. Snow squalls moved in and came down heavily. From time to time the sun would tempt us with a brief appearance and then it would disappear in the snow.
We had a a nice pleasant gradual climb through cottony woods. Bill put Stanley's second coat on as snow steadily came down. We enjoyed several water-food breaks as the trail nicely switch-backed up the ridge. These woods were incredibly beautiful, birds cheerfully called back and forth. It was cold, my outside bottle was frozen.
We reached the Garfield Ridge Trail and thought about dropping packs for the ascent. I had practically everything on that my pack held anyway. But we kept them on for the .2 mile climb up the cone.
It was pretty steep in a couple of spots and the snow had a glaze coat of ice underneath. We had no problems though as we rose through the scrub. The wind hit us and picked up any loose snow making for whiteout conditions. I was glad not to be hiking over any exposed ridgeline today! We reached the summit just after noon and sat behind the foundation for a few minutes.
Stanley ducked his head between us while the wind buffetted Garfield's icy crown. We spent only a few minutes on top after 4 hours of hiking to the top.
We had a fun sliding down the cone. Just below the ridge we met a solo hiker with a battered skateboard on his pack (no wheels.) We met his buddy skiing up the trail a mile or so below moving pretty slowly. A third hiker was met further down near the stream crossings so this trail would be well broken out today. One of the snow-bridges over the stream partially collapsed when Bob walked over it.
We were down in 3 hours, it had been a great day to be out walking in these beautiful woods. It was my winter 42nd and new winter peaks for Bill, Stanley, Jeb and Bob also. We might not've ended winter with a bang, but we didn't end it with a whimper either. We covered 12.4 miles and just over 3K in elevation gain.