My first real hut experience

Yes, I did huts on my Grand Traverse trip in New Zealand. But those were luxury huts, complete with hot showers and even a drying room! No showers in the AMC hut system, including the hut I stayed in on Saturday night.

How did I do, without a shower? Better than I thought I would. But the jury is still out as to whether I'll do it again. Maybe ...

The Gale River Trail to the hut followed the course of the Gale River. It is a moderate wooded trail, with some steepness at the end--but not nearly as steep as the Sunset Ridge Trail or Laura Cowles on Mt. Mansfield.

Galehead Hut is at 3,800' elevation, with some nice views south. Unfortunately, due to haze, visibility was limited to about 10 miles, so the farthest mountain we saw was Mt. Flume. Mt. Kearsarge was not visible.

No views on Galehead Mountain's wooded summit, but there was a nice outlook east to the hut.

On Day 2, we weren't able to summit Mt. Garfield, despite being only about 0.2 miles and about 200' elevation from the top. The weather was threatening, with low foreboding clouds and very high winds, and we knew the forecast was for thunderstorms. Not worth the risk.

The Garfield Ridge Trail is challenging, with some very steep sections. Yet all were doable. We are thankful that we did those steep sections before the rain came. It rained on us on most of our trip down on the Garfield Trail. A nice couple from Franconia named Brant and Minnie drove us the ~1.5 miles from that trailhead to the Gale River Trail lot. A good day, despite not making the summit and getting rained on. There's never a bad day when you're on the trail! (Or at least, almost never :-)

14 miles (over 2 days), ~2,500' elevation gain (2,200' to Galehead Hut + 300' to Galehead Mt. summit) on Day 1; ~500' elevation gain on Day 2
Summit: Galehead Mountain = 4,024 feet
Route: Gale River Trail and Frost Trail to Galehead Hut and Galehead Mountain; Garfield Ridge Trail to Garfield Trail