Avoiding the crowds on Gunstock

We recently had the great fortune to take a weekday hike with our friends, beginning under cloud covered skies and ending with sunshine, summiting Rowe and Gunstock in Gilford.  

Route: (loosely) Access Rd to Rowe summit (1680') - Belknap Range Trail - Access Rd/ski trails - Gunstock summit (2244'), Access roads/ski trails to the base.
Mileage: appx 4.3 miles

Favorite features: great footing, variety of open meadow and wooded environments, blueberry bushes, ledgey ridge walking without the crowds. 

Another not-so-precise trip report!  From the parking lot for the ski area, follow the road that skirts behind the main building, towards the playground and take a left - up the hill.  Here begins the unpaved access road that we took all the way to the summit of Rowe.  It begins fairly steep but easily navigable, even for clumsy feet, over gravel and packed earth.  There are bypasses that go through the woods but we opted to stick with the road.  It's a nice treat to be able to talk with your hiking companion without having to crane your neck back or have your doggo on a long line without constantly untangling yourself from trees!  

The summit of Rowe has some cell tower equipment but is otherwise, no offense Rowe, unremarkable.  However, upon re-entering the woods (watch for the post and blazing), we began a pretty, low ridge walk that eventually opened onto blueberry ledges. They were perfectly ripe and it was very difficult to avoid lingering!  After some nice views of our target summit and the lake, we re-entered the woods but again, were repeatedly treated to blueberries and smooth ledge walking surfaces.

Eventually - probably earlier than intended by trail managers - we popped out onto the ski trails, which we took for the remainder of the hike.  We were lucky and some of the water bars had just enough to re-hydrate the dogs.  This is a brutal section under sunny skies but we were protected by the clouds this time.  As the chair lifts come into sight, the grade steepens and the thought "oh yeah, 'up!'" comes to mind. To be sure, there are short breaks in the grade that are just as appreciated going up on foot as they are for novice skiers like me going down!  

We bailed shortly before the lodge, following the road around to the right and stopping for a snack, before opting to head down the ski trail in front of us (looking down the mountain - left of the one we took up).  It looks like we followed the dotted blue line on the map below but I can't be certain.  This one was a little less gravel road and a little more meadow-y.  The upper 2/3 or so are mostly packed dirt and grass with some slick ledgy rocks - and narrower than the trail up.  We noticed flagging in a couple of places that indicated small footpaths that led back to the wooded trail.  Eventually, Hannah noticed the large sign to the left that notifies hiker of the Belknap Range trail system but we decided to stick with the pretty, open meadow walk with the lake views that eventually curved around to the access road to finish our descent to the base - further center and closer to the parking lot than where we embarked from.  

 

It was the perfect afternoon hike for our crew!  

Summary and thoughts:

I love this hike; the Belknaps in general are a go-to that I best not take for granted.  While Gunstock is open for summer activities, it was easy enough to skirt around the families and head straight up. While I have been caught off guard by the number of other hikers encountered on a couple of occassions (still single digits), we passed exactly zero others today (not counting the handful of folks at the summit, many of whom took the chair lift, who we never interacted with).  Bonus feature: there are many other trails that start from Gunstock, allowing for on the fly target modifications, if needed.

The footing, even when damp as it was on Monday (and why we sought a hike with good footing), is as good as it gets for a hike in NH with elevation changes.  While the beginning of Rowe and summit of Gunstock are steep, they're not Tuckerman steep and could be compared to the Mt. Major Trail on its namesake trail (without the ledges) or Hedgehog.  I'd say this hike is one of the best as far as consistently good footing goes - while the gravel can be a little loose, there's no rocky sections, no scrambles, nothing my arthritic dogs can't do comfortably - and while I deeply miss Caps Ridge, it just doesn't get any better than Rowe/Gunstock these days.  The fact that there's some choice in when to pop on and off the wooded and ski trails is also nice, allowing us to be flexible without changing the overall plan - it all meets back together.  Whether it's to be able to make a quick bail or simply switch up the scenery, that's a feature I've come to love in a hike!

Online resources: 

Belknap Range Trail Tenders: https://belknaprangetrails.org/belknap-range-trail-map/

Gunstock trail map: https://www.gunstock.com/upload/photos/page_111_hiking-trail_map-8.5x11-compressed.pdf

Rambling in Blue Job State Forest

Blue Job (1356') is a well-loved and unbeatable "bang for your buck" small hike straddling Farmington and Strafford, NH.  The most popular loop covers Blue Job, with its climbable fire tower, and the ledgey, open Little Blue Job, with its distant but lovely view of the White Mountains.

Setting the scene: 54,* rainy kickoff to the Fourth of July weekend 
Route: Left onto the Fire Tower Loop to the summit - backtrack down to Little Blue Job Trail to the pond (no summit today). Pond Trail - Blue Job summit - northern arm of Fire Tower Loop back to the lot (right, if facing the sign at the summit).  
Miles: appx. 2.5
Duration: 1.5 hours
Max elevation gain: appx 400'

Favorite features: Blueberries (very close to ready 7/3/21!), mountain pond, environment of Little Blue Job with its open ledge + stone walls + dusty summit paths.

Description: The hike overall is a very pleasant and easy one.  There are still ascents to be had but for context, Blue Job is similar to the hikes around Pawtuckaway and Agamenticus.  Terrain is generally packed dirt, though there are heavily eroded sections with lots of roots and some looser gravel on Little Blue Job.  Closer to each summit are ledgey sections of smooth, exposed rock. At no point would I consider the described sections of trails rocky or steep.  Part of the northern section of the Fire Tower Loop is even an old, crumbling asphalt road.  There's a bunch of super helpful descriptions out there so mine will mostly be in picture format :) 

Section breakdown

Fire Tower Loop (taking a left from the lot) to the junction with Little Blue Job Trail: easy through open woods, usually a brook for the doggos (dry in 7/21, even with the rain).

 

Fire Tower Loop to summit: Mostly wide trail that weaves up the mountain past a couple of blocked, private trails and blueberry bushes.  Brook in non-summer months towards the bottom.

Little Blue Job to Pond Trail: Largely flat or rolling trail through open woods.  One large, fairly recent blowdown. Fun pond and unofficial trail around it, as well as many herd paths that cut up the side of Little Blue Job and meet back with the main trail.

Pond Trail to Blue Job Summit: This section had the most terrain variety during today's meander.  We went from smooth ledge to rolling dirt paths to some briefly steeper, exposed ledgy sections.  (These get super icy in winter.)

Summary and notes: On paper, it might not look like much but you can get in a little elevation, great views, and wonderful variety at Blue Job.  Everyone, from seasoned hiker dog Ty to less-outdoorsy friends, find Blue Job engaging and enjoyable year-round.  It's understandable why it's so popular and that's why I tend to go at off-hours (and still tend to encounter up to a dozen fellow visitors), especially where Arya is doing so well with her training and I don't want to take a step backwards with too many dog-dog interactions on one hike.  It's reasonably well marked, with off-limits trails being specified as such, but the numerous herd paths ascending Little Blue Job can throw off a new visitor - know that they all meet up where they should!  After finally looking at a map while writing, I realized that some of the trails that didn't seem 'official' actually are, so it appears we have some more exploring to do!  Someday, I'll report on those and the more standard loop over both peaks! (Although NHFH gives a great description of the latter here.)

Map credit to the Town of Farmington

We're Back!

Hi there! I started this blog in 2015, hoping to provide helpful reports and insights for hikers like me who favor hitting the trails with their dogs.  For me, that was Ty, the outdoor-oriented Carolina Dog mix, and Tango, the oxymoronically chill Aussie-Malamute-GSD-wolfer, who humored our craving for elevation.  Hiking back then meant out of the house in the early light and returning in the evening.  

By 2017, while my posts tapered off sharply, we continued hiking but mostly shorter, lower elevation hikes to accomodate Tango.  On October 19, 2020, Tango's watch ended, thanks to a well-hidden and aggressive cancer along his spine.  Unaware of the heartache that was a short way down the road, we started fostering a feisty young Carolina Dog in September and, surprise surprise, her status has changed to "foster fail." Tango treated her like a little sister, granting her leeway no other foster had been permitted, as if facilitating the transition we had no idea was underway.  Her name is Arya, and yes, she'd rather behave like a beast than a lady! (Game of Thrones anyone??)  

My hope is to restart this blog to track our journey and hopefully provide some entertainment, useful info, and maybe hope along the way to anyone who finds us. See, Arya is special in a lot of ways but some of the sucky ones are leash reactivity and elbow dysplasia.  Suffice to say, these are not conditions that align well with the hiker lifestyle that she/we love so much.  Blog pages and Facebook support groups have been great sources of encouragement for me and I'd love to pay that forward, if I can.

While I'm keeping our name as Paws on Peaks, expect to see more flat ventures and maybe even wheeled ones more so than grand "peakbagging" excursions.  To that end, you can now find us on IG as @heathen_dingos_of_the_north, though activity is admittedly intermittent.  I'm also hoping to post more about adventuring from the medical and behavioral perspectives, especially in the context of living and exploring the Seacoast (NH) and surrounding area.  

Oh, and if you happen to have checked out our page in years past, Ty is still kicking my ass! She has spondylosis & some hearing and vision loss but none of these are too bad for her 12.5 years on this planet and hike days are still the highlight of her existence.  Actually, this weekend marks 12 years since we first met <3  

Drop a note if there's any topics you want to see and let's get started!