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Mount Galehead day hike |
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This day hike started at the parking area across the road from Forest Road FR25 right off of US Route 3 in Bethlehem. The road to the Gale River Trail trailhead is closed in winter which adds an addtional 1.6 miles each way to the hike. From the parking area we followed the road to the trailhead and then took the Gale River Trail, to the Garefield Ridge Trail, to the Frost Trail to the summit of Mount Galehead, returning the same way.
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The starting point for this hike was the parking area on the other side of the highway at the end of Forest Road FR25 right off of US Route 3 in Bethlehem. This would be winter 4000-footer #16 for me and general 4000-footer #45 for Katie. We had hoped to start at 7:00 like the prior week but again encountered some technical difficulties. This time I was about 15 miles away from home when I realized I didn't have my hiking boots with me and had to turn around and go home to get them. I guess it's better I discovered this before I arrived at the trail though. We also had some problems with Katie's car getting stuck in the snow and as a result did not actually start hiking until around 7:45.
It was a cloudy day and the temperature was in the mid 20s at the start of the hike and I only had my base layer on and my microfleece. Once we started up the Gale River Trail it didn't take long to warm up enough to get rid of the microfleece. It was a beautiful morning for a hike in spite of the cloudiness and we made very good time on the forest road and the lower portion of the trail.
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The forest road had heavy use by trucks in the section closer to the highway and snowmobiles further up and the snow was nicely packed. We were able to make due on the road and on the lower secton of the Gale River Trail with just our microspikes. The lower portion of the trail had about an inch or so of fresh powder on it but on other hiker bad been up the trail ahead of us in showshoes.
About halfway up the trail the snow had deepened to the point where snowshoes would make travel a lot easier so we stopped for a while to put them on. There was not much snow at all at the lower elevation and we wavered for a while at the car trying to decide whether to bring the snowshoes or not. I am glad we did.
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We picked up a little speed with the snowshoes on and I was glad we had decided to bring them with us. There was about 5-6 inches of powder on the trail when we decided to put them on and the snow continued to deepen the higher we went. By the time we reached the junction with the Garefield Ridge Trail it was probably 8-9 inches.
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By the time we reached the Garfield Ridge Trail I knew that we probably would have been turned back if we had not brought the snowshoes with us. When we reached the junction with the Frost Trail I was absolutely sure of it. The hiker ahead of us had gone on to South Twin Mountain and the trail to the Galehead Hut and most likely to the top of Mount Galehead itself was unbroken. There were a few drifts along the way to the Galehead Hut that we easily three feet deep.
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I was very happy when we reached Galehead Hut and we could actually see the top of Mount Galehead. The Twins had their heads in the clouds all morning and I feared that Galehead would be the same way and that we would see nothing. Galehead is a lot lower than the twins though and her head was just below the cloud deck.
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We only stopped at Galehead Hut long enough to add another layer of clothing. It was a little windy there on the front porch and I was very happy to get my warmer jacket on.
Breaking the trail from the hut to the top of Mount Galehead was... interesting. Neither Katie or I had ever been in this situation before and it was a tue learning eperience. I think this was actually the first time Katie had hiked in snowshoes and I had only done much shorter trips on the lower section of the Falling Waters Trail with mine before. It was hard in a couple of places to know where the trail actually went and we had one place where we really had to hunt around for it. In most of the lower portion next to the hut we followed the tracks of a rabbit that apparently knew exactly where the trail was.
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There really was not that much to see from higher up as the top of Galehead was very close to the cloud deck. We did get a nice view of Galehead Hut below us from an overlook close to the summit though.
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There was nothing at all to see from the summit and the only way we could tell we were there was because the trail just dead-ended. There was a small clearing and perhaps a summit cairn buried beneath the snow but there was no place else to go. We took a few photos to prove we were there and then headed back down to Galehead Hut. Going down was a heck of a lot easier since we had already broken the trail on the way up.
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We stopped for lunch back at Galehead Hut and ate our PB&J sandwiches on the side porch that was out of the wind. Since it was Katie's birthday I had also brought along a cupcake and a candle for her, which was a big surpise. Unfortunately there was still a light breeze coming arond the side of the hut and I could not get the candle to stay lit.
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After lunch we took off and flew down the trail, stopping only a couple of times for a quick breather or to take a photo or two. Katie's snowshoes had much better traction on the downhill than mine and I had a hard time keeping up with her. I really had to slow down on some of the steeper section of my snowshoes ended up being more like short skis. I landed on my butt a couple of times because I did not slow down enough and just got up too much speed. As soon as we got back to the section of the trail with less snow I switched back into my microspikes which made the going a lot easier.
We arrived back the the Gale River Trail trailhead just a little before 3:00 and then were back at the parking area right around 3:30. We ended up doing the 13.4 miles in about 7½ hours for an average of about 1.8 miles per hour. Given the rest breaks and the break for lunch our moving average was probably better than 2 miles per hour. Not too bad. It was a fun day.
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