Belknap and Gunstock

 

I'm actually writing well after the fact, I forgot to blog about my Mt. Belknap hike, which I realized was a mistake, because it was an awesome hike, one that I would definitely do again. I went on Saturday of Labor Day weekend - I can't believe that Labor Day has passed - and it was a great improvement over Owl's Head! I was thinking about different routes for the hike, and thought about trying to park in the same little lot as last time, but it was so small, I figured it would be full. Looking at a map, I realized that Gunstock ski resort wasn't far away at all, and of course they would have a ton of parking, so I planned my hike around that. There were a million people and a bunch of tents when I got there. It could have been a ski sale - maybe should have checked it out, but I just got new skis last year, and I don't think I need cross country. 

Anyhow, the plan was to do Belknap, which is the tallest mountain in the Belknaps, and then Gunstock. I had a cheese sandwich, pringles, and some nuts, and GPS with all trails. I did get a little carried away with my GPS, and went up this snowshoe trail, that I soon realized wasn't what I wanted to be on. Eventually I bushwacked to the actual trail. I managed to make a flat even walk in the woods into something difficult - good job me.

Some of the hike covered the same area as Klem and Mack, but then I turned off at a different trail to head up. I really liked the trail I took up, I took Birch to East Gilford which was the trail with a lot of elevation gain - E Gilford was not too steep, and was really slabby with opened sections and a few nice view points. I sat at one of the view spots and ate, and then went to the top and climbed the fire tower. While I was in the fire tower, these three guys came up, driving remote operated trucks. I was both impressed that their trucks made it all the way up, and annoyed at all the noise. Anyhow, I then took Blue trail to saddle to the top of Gunstock, where I sat at the top of the ski resort and finished my food. 

From there, I backtracked on saddle and headed down. There was a sign near the top of the ski mountain that said 1.4 miles, 1 hour 30 minutes walk, which I thought was a little excessive, but it messed with my head a little. In the end, it took me about 50 minutes, so the sign was wrong. 

According to alltrails, I did 7.37 miles with 1821 feet elevation gain and an average pace of 33:43 mph. Total hiking time was 5 hrs 2 min, with 4 hr 9 minutes of moving time, the rest was sandwich eating time! It gives you splits, which is nice - you can see where my first mile I was silly and got off trail and was pokey. And, you can see the uphill bits where things got slower. I'm looking forward to doing a longer/harder hike with alltrails to see what my splits look like!

Monday of Labor Day weekend I took the ferry to Provincetown. A friend of mine was staying there for a week and I'd never really been there. It was so nice! We walked around the cute shops, and then I went for a swim in the ocean (which was cold but not freezing). After, I walked on a jetty there, that's about a mile each way - it was a lot of fun, and very parkour. I was kind of dumb because I didn't bring water or a camera, but on the other hand, I wasn't distracted by getting the best photo. Definitely something to repeat, it was so nice, and taking the ferry made it very easy (except that I overslept and woke up at 8:10 for the 8:30 ferry - it was kind of a miracle that I made it). It would be really fun to walk out on the jetty and hang out on the beach for the day, there was really almost no one out there!