NH MSG Section 6b and SRKG Section 1: Mt Sunapee

A brisk wake-up at Camp Galvin in 40° weather

Good morning from the Steve Galvin Shelter site on Sunapee Ridge! The previous night it was so warm I had a window fan blowing on me all night long and now it was 40° and I was sleeping in a winter coat. Welcome to the first day of Autumn.

Why is there no door???

What's up with shelter toilets that have no privacy? The 3-sided one at the Galpin Shelter did at least have the three sides, but why not just add a door? I assume there's some reason. While backpacking the Appalachian Trail in Connecticut early in the year, I found toilets than had zero walls. Just a big toilet standing there like a throne at the end of a very short access trail. Why? Seems like this would encourage people to not use the facility and go elsewhere, which would not be good for water quality.

Views along Sunapee Ridge

At any rate, this part of the trail continued to be outstanding as it followed the Sunapee ridgeline north. The ups and downs did get rockier and the footing a bit more tricky, but not bad. The trail was clear and easy to follow, but not over-used and eroded. Before long, I arrived at  Lucia's Lookout, a nice spot to sit and catch the morning's rays.

Private view

The amount of smooth, bare granite underfoot increases as you go north along the ridgeline, reminding me a bit of hiking at Acadia.

Lots of granite on this section

Spruce, fir, granite, and reindeer moss under a vivid blue sky. Sigh.

Granite and lichens

The trail is almost a sidewalk here

My favorite spot of the entire trail was the vista about a half mile south of Lake Solitude. Just breathtaking.

Favorite spot since Mt. Monadnock

There was Mt. Monadnock in the distance, where the M-M Trail ended and this one began.

Mt Monadnock, where this trail started

Confused Dogwood

The ironically named Lake Solitude was picturesque, but loud hikers ruined it. From the opposite shore I heard conversations about whether or not to take the trail around the pond and other things. They're standing right next to each other, but I could hear their conversation a quarter of a mile away.  A guy was out in the middle of the pond fishing in an inflatable gizmo. I felt sorry for his lack of peace. But what can you do. I put in some headphones and spent the rest of the hike listening to a podcast about aliens contacting a deep space station that is orbiting a star called Wolf 359.

Lake Solitude, ha ha ha ha

Several trails converge at the north end of the pond, including the Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway, which is a very long name and hereafter will be referenced as the SRK Greenway. The M-S Greenway and the SRK Greenway are co-aligned from the pond up to the summit of Mt. Sunapee where the M-S Greenway ends.

Blazes for the Sunapee-Ragged-Kearsarge Greenway

The SRK Greenway is marked with prefab markers tacked to trees such that the orientation of the marker indicates the direction of the trail.  There are almost no confidence blazes. Only turns and junctions are marked.

Pretty, but noisy

The trail continue on and upward for about another mile, and there was a steady trickle of hikers on this Sunday morning. This part of the trail is also called "Solitude Trail" ha ha ha. The trail then came out onto a gravel access road for the ski facilities and followed that steeply up the hill. A beautiful overlook of Lake Sunapee and mountains off to the northeast opened up below.

Trail joins a ski service road

From this point I wasn't sure where to go and asked a few people if they knew which way the M-S Greenway went, but no one knew. I continued up the gravel road and finally saw a white blaze on a rock underfoot.

Lake Sunapee

And there was the summit, with the ski lift running overhead and people meandering about the grassy top.  I continued along the road, casting about for trail info.

Alien spaceship at the very top

And there it was: The official end of the M-S Greenway. Whoohoo!

End of the M-S Greenway! 

So that's that. On to the next trail! Time to follow those SRK Greenway markers down the hill.

Now following the SRK Greenway

I missed a marker right up at the top and followed a treadway steeply down for a bit until it became dangerous.  Since there no confidence blazes on this trail, if you take a wrong turn, you may not realize it for a long time. As I stood there pondering this crazy trail route, I heard voices down below, and tracked their movement. Maybe I wasn't on the correct trail. So I scrambled back upwards and intersected the group as they came up. And there was the blaze I missed. Yikes. I was very careful the rest of the way down not to miss a single marker.

Don't miss a blaze!

The SRK Greenway was fairly steep going down, and deeply eroded in many spots. It was tedious going on wet, mossy rock. But eventually I got down to Old Province Road. Freakishly, my husband drove up about 30 seconds later. Incredible timing seeing as he was coming from Connecticut.

Back down at the bottom

We checked into the Sunapee Lake Lodge and a hot shower never felt so good.