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| The "friendliest town" award goes to: Washington Center |
Welcome to Section 5 of the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway. This section begins in Washington Center, which is my new favorite town. It was definitely the friendliest town I've encountered in my walks up from Long Island Sound. Every single person I passed either waved or cheerfully exclaimed, "Good Morning!" with one person adding, "Welcome to Washington!"
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| Road walk past a museum |
It was a Saturday morning around 10:30 am and a small farmer's market had set up at the crossroads while a musician played some pipes out front. After lingering there a bit and chatting with the farmers, I headed down the road past some historical monuments and a big old barn that is now some kind of museum.
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| Halfmoon Pond boat launch |
This first section is a road walk, but not a bad one. Half Moon Pond Road goes past the boat launch for Half Moon Pond. A cold wind was whipping across the water, after a drastic cold front that arrived the night before. The first crisp air of the season.
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| Lovell Mtn Rd |
The trail then turns onto a 4WD road and follows that for a good ways. It can be so easy to miss a turn off of a road like this, but it was very well marked. Thank you!
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| Effective turn sign |
No more slackpacking this trail: I was carrying a fully-loaded backpack for a two-night trip in cold weather (it would turn out to be a one-night trip, but I think I had enough food for five days in there). Loaded packs always seem so much heavier than you remembered them being when you first put them on. Especially if you're going uphill.
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| Lots of cairns going up this mountain |
After the trail turned off the road and became a real hiking trail walks, it wasted no time climbing Lovewell Mountain, about a 1,000-foot elevation gain. It was a beautiful hike, and even though it was a Saturday I only passed one set of hikers on my way up. Probably the cold wind kept the hikers away, but it was invigorating.
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| Reindeer lichen, spruce, and fir on the upper slopes |
It was lunchtime by the time I got to the shoulder or false summit of the mountain. It had been a busy morning driving up from Connecticut before the hike, but I'd stopped at the Washington General Store beforehand to buy one of their delicious grinders. Now was the time to enjoy half of that. Mmmm.
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| Top of Lovell Mtn |
The walk up wasn't overly steep, just a relentless path upwards through the spruce and fir, and eventually I was at the top of the world with some great views.
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| Nice job with the signs and trail register. |
They've done a great job along this trail with signs, trail registers, maps, etc. Signs take a lot of work. Just installing a sign is a lot of work.
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| First moose tracks of the trip |
It was an easy trip back down the other side, and I found myself at the Max Israel Shelter at 2 pm. I was expecting to spend the night here, but it was so early. And it there was a very cold wind ripping through the place, so hanging out at the camping area didn't sound like much fun. I decided to stop and eat the rest of my sandwich and ponder my options. The next shelter was about another six miles up the trail with another 1,000 foot elevation gain. Sunset was around 6:30 pm, so I had about four hours. Yes. I could make it.
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| Max Israel Shelter |
Invigorated with a new goal, I abandoned Plan "A" and the Max Israel Shelter (which, by the way, has zero cell phone signal) and headed down the trail towards the Steve Galpin Shelter.
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| Bog Brook |
The trail continued down Lovewell Mountain, crossed Half Moon Pond Road (gravel) and Bog Brook, then began the climb up to the ridge that extends north to Mt. Sunapee. I counted four significant climbs on the map between me and the Galpin Shelter. That was the first one.
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| The first of four more hills |
The next climb was Kittredge Hill. With my faster pace and heavy pack, this hill did me in. Good footing, though. No reason to slow down.
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| Gorgeous and peaceful section of trail |
There were some other trails coming in from the west side of Pillsbury State Park, but there were no hikers to be seen. All was peaceful.
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| Miles of beautiful trail |
Eventually I got over the remaining hills and came to Moose Lookout about a quarter mile south of the Galpin Shelter.
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| Moose Lookout |
And there were plenty of moose track and moose poop right there at the Moose Lookout and all the way to the campsite.
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| Yup. Moose at Moose Lookout. |
Yay! I made it. Just in time to bundle up in layers of warm clothes, set up the tent, hang a bear bag, and cook some noodles before dark. Barely. I sat in the shelter for awhile, but abandoned that idea after hearing lots of animal sounds under the shelter.
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| Steve Galpin Shelter at Moose Lookout |
Sitting in my tent after it got dark, I heard some animal do a deep snort-cough-grunt as it went down the trail. I don't know what that was, but I'm guessing it was a moose passing by, giving off an alarm after it smelled me nearby in the tent. Seemed like a good time to get back to that Stephen King book I was reading, so that's what I did.
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| No mice can run across my face in this tent. |
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