Mt. Garfield, July 15, 2006

Join me for a hike up Mt. Garfield on July 15th, 6.5 hours, 10 miles, and an elevation gain of 3100'. Moderate to strenuous. The Garfield Trail starts out very gently, through mixed forest, but steepens just before reaching the Garfield Ridge Trail, at 4.5 miles then climbs abruptly up to the rocky open summit. It has great views of the Bonds and Franconia ridge. Hike leader ice cream afterwards at exit 32 I-93, in Loon.

NEXT HIKE: July 15th, Mt. Garfield
MEETING SPOTS: Target parking lot in Woburn at 7:30; Concord NH, exit 14 off of Rt. 93, LL Bean parking lot 8:15-8:30; Trailhead 10:00
TRAILHEAD: Drive North through Franconia Notch, I-93,turn right on Rte 3 and follow it for 5 miles towards Twin Mountain, at hiker sign and a sign for the Gale River Trail, turn right on to Gale River Loop Road, the trailhead parking is in to the left at 1.2 miles.
HIKE LEADER: David Diver

Dave Diver took us to Mt Garfield on Saturday, here is his review:

We had a nice hot and humid day for a hike up Mt. Garfield. We started out with 12 hikers at the trailhead, but one decided to go back about a quarter of the way up the trail. Other than the flys that join us when ever we stopped for a rest. It was a good hike. When we got to the summit, we met up with three dogs and 4 more hikers from the group. We stayed at the top for a while and had lunch and took in the views, then we all headed down to the trail head, together. Afterwards we went to Lincoln, for ice cream although we went to different locations for our reward. All in all I thought it was a good hike, no one got hurt and we had many laughs and fun. I invited everyone over to my cottage after the hike for a swim and a Bar-B-Q, but by the time we got back to the carpool location it was late and everybody just wanted to go home to bed.