NH 48 – Backpacking Hale, Zealand, (Guyot), West Bond, Bond, Bondcliff

Trip Dates: Oct 21 – 22, 2017 (Sat – Sun)

As I recently completed my Adirondacks 46er list, and since I had also hiked all of the 4000-footers in Maine and Vermont, I started to get a bit impatient to complete my New Hampshire (NH) 48, by doing that I would also be done with New England 67 and Northeast 115 list!

I had three day-hikes and one backpacking left to complete the list. Weather looked promising for a few consecutive days. So, I decided to make this six hour drive up to the White Mountains from NYC in the hope of being able to do all of the hikes to get my list done.

I did those three day-hikes solo in over two days prior to starting the backpacking. However a second car was needed in order to do the shuttled backpacking that I was planning to do for my finisher. This had been my dream backpacking for over a year. AMC’s shuttle service had already stopped running. Nobody from NYC were able to join with such a short notice. A MOB friend from NY, Jason, had recently moved to NH. I decided to reach out to him to see if he could help me out somehow, and he agreed to join as the weather was perfect for that weekend 🙂 .

I met Jason at the Lincoln Woods Visitor Center at 7:45 AM on Saturday Oct 21. We spotted my car there and drove 45 mins to Hale Brook Trailhead to start the backpacking. It was warmer than I expected, and soon after we started the hike, I started to sweat a lot. Once we reached the summit of Hale, smile was all over my face 🙂 . The summit was a big open area with no views. We took summit photos, ate some snacks, and then carried on to descending the mountain.

Summit of Hale

Once we reached the junction for Zealand Falls Hut, we took the side trip to stop at the hut, we bought some cakes, and used the bathroom.

Zealand Falls Hut

From there it was a steep ascend to Zeacliff Outlook, a viewpoint that I’d been to, on my very first hiking trip to NH several years ago! We took a 15 min break there to enjoy the view.

Zeacliff Outlook

The trail was pretty event-less from that point on. it was just a long ascend to reach the summit of Zealand, the true summit was via a 0.2 mile side-trail. This summit once again had no views. So I did not want to spend much time there other than taking summit photos. We took our lunch break in the junction with the main trail. A few birds joined us 🙂 .

Zealand Summit

Zealand Summit

Lunch Spot

Trail then started to descend down a bit before starting to climb Guyot. We ran into two friends from NYC on the trail who started the hike at 5 AM as a day-trip. They informed us that the campsite at Guyot was almost full. When we reached Guyot summit, the views from it was outstanding. However we could not spend much time there as we needed to get to the camp asap to secure a spot. Even though no backpackers had passed us on the trail, but there were two other trails people could take to get to this camp.

Ran into friends on the trail

Views from Guyot

Views from Guyot

Once we reached the junction with the sidetrail to the camp, it was a 0.2 miles steep descend to reach it. As our friends informed us, the tent platforms were all gone. When we got to the shelter, which could accommodate 12 people, it was nearly full as well with only two spots left on the top bunk and two spots left on the bottom bunk. I decided to take the top bunk. Ten mins later two more people came and took the bottom two bunks. Several people arrived after that and could not get a spot. They ended up going back up to the main trail and camping on the flat areas nearby, but the water source was only by the shelter.

The shelter

Inside the shelter

My dinner 🙂

It was nice to just take the pack off, relax a little bit, filter water, cook, and have a nice meal. I was happy to get a spot at the shelter. Even though we were originally thinking about doing a sunset hike to West Bond, we decided to ditch that idea and decided to do a sunrise hike instead.

Next morning I slept in (as usual). So no sunrise hike either. I also needed extra time to eat breakfast and pack, and so once again we did not get on the trail till 9 AM. It only took us less than half an hour to reach the summit of West Bond. It was extremely beautiful on the summit and I sort of regretted for not doing the sunset or sunrise hike.

Summit of West Bond

Summit of West Bond

The trail to Bond was not too bad, and only took us a short time to reach to the summit. It had one of the best views of the day!

Summit of Bond

Summit of Bond

Summit of Bond

From there it was onto my final peak Bondcliff 🙂 . Once we reached the cliff section of the Bondcliff, Jason took my picture on the cliff on the cliff and I took his picture. We ate our lunch on the summit of Bondcliff. The views from the main summit was outstanding and the best view we have had so far on the trip.

On the way to Bondcliff

On Bondcliff

Bondcliff

The descend down to the flat trail was relatively easy with just one short scramble along the way. Then it was a long, boring flat walk back to the car. I stopped at the first stream to filter some water. We stopped again at another big stream just to dip my feet into the ice-cold water. It felt sooo good 🙂 .

End of the trip!

Once we reached the famous bridge right before parking lot, Jason informed me that this was the end of the hike. I was, by that point, extremely tired and could not wait to take my pack off, use the bathroom, drive to a restaurant in Lincoln to get a well-earned burger 🙂 .

With this trip, I completed my 3.5 year long journey to hike all of 115 High Peaks in the Northeast!