Nothin' To Do With Farming: Our Galehead Mountain Adventure!

I turn onto the road at Five Corners, halfway between Cannon and Carroll. Just past the bridge over the Gale River for the aptly-named Gale River Trail. The trail my dad and I parachuted down twelve years ago when we abandoned our ill-fated Appalachian Trail adventure. I think about this fateful core-memory hike almost daily. I know I’m going to think about it a lot today. But the big brown sign catches my attention:

BE BEAR AWARE!

A paw print the size of Wilder looms above the road. We crunch gravel past camping sites and swallowtails tango in the speckled sunlight. Dust kicks up while James McMurtry’s new album plays quietly on the radio. “I used to be strong, as any man,” he sings. I u-turn at the overflowing parking lot and aim my Tacoma back toward the way out, my right tires in a ditch. Two wily dogs hop out of the truck and we potty at an abandoned campsite, among young beech and fir no taller than me. I pull on my backpack, filled with water and Scandinavian Swimmers and dog cookies.

We walk through the parking lot, hardly an inch between car or tree. I can’t even find the trailhead. I ask a middle-aged couple strapping up for their hike. They enthusiastically step aside to open the portal to the trail. They love the dogs. Wilder is about to win the award for handsomest dog on the mountain today, as he is fluffy and happy and already muddy. His blue eyes shine from his low, stout frame, all the way to the blue sky, from where they come. If someone walks into his gaze, they can’t help but smile. We now walk into the blue sky, itself.

Not even a minute down the trail, we cross a brook. Wilder plops in and we are in business. Pip dabbles in the brook too, but prefers to keep it ankle deep. The dogs know trails and off they go ahead of me, keeping in view with minimal command. If they fall behind, I keep an eye on them. We jog at a leisurely pace, slowing only to pass hikers, accept graciously the pats and affectations that come with being cute dogs, and to swim. Gale River Trail gets an A+ for dog swimming. Wilder tells me he is thinking about starting a blog solely to rate trails on their swimmability.

Soon a pack of hut porters, a half dozen younger kids wearing backpacks framed out with 2x4’s, step aside so we can pass. They gawk and whisper and giggle at the dopey, wobbly, wiggly dogs hopping over fallen logs into puddles. Typically a hike with the dogs is on a local trail where few people ever go, so I am not used to all this attention. We are but a mile in and we’ve said hello to ten people already. I guess all those cars had drivers, yeah? This is the price to pay to summit the 4000-footers.

I used to hike in the White Mountains as often as I could. I hit pause on my 4000-footers quest when Wilder was a puppy. Instead of spending weekends in the mountains, I would run laps around the neighborhood, quickly transforming from a hiker into a runner. I still have a few peaks to bag, but I’m not in a hurry. I want to take the dogs up as many as possible while they have a chance, but it’s not a priority for them to finish. I can’t imagine old-man Wilder completing Owl’s Head, a 20-mile round trip with two sketchy river crossings and a violent last-minute steep pitch over some cliffs to the world’s least interesting summit. But just questioning the ability to do it makes me want to prove ourselves wrong. Wilder looks up at me, the blue sky in his eyes, and bunny hops with anticipation for our adventure. He’s sees your Wild and adds an -er. Then he slaps his cards on the table and collects his chips.

We are on Galehead Mountain today for a few reasons: it’s an easy-ish ten-mile round trip adventure for the dogs; and I want to reminisce the trail and memories with my dad. I also need some miles and elevation for the trail racing season; and I need to get out of the goddamned house. The farm is taking a break and I want to enjoy the summer in the mountains. Andddddd I need an excuse to go get Super Secret Ice Cream in nearby Bethlehem.

Back in 2013, my dad and I hiked a section of the Appalachian Trail that he never completed in his younger days as a lanky-legged thru-hiker. Before I was born he hiked from Georgia to Vermont and then section-hiked after beginning a family with my mom, sometimes taking me or my younger siblings along. I grew up hiking the Whites with my old man, who was my age back then – and one day when we were both much older, we decided to tackle a section he’d never done.

We hiked the AT for two days and camped at the top of the Gale River Trail at the end of day three. We debated continuing while he suffered from being dehydrated and out-of-shape. It was the Fourth of July and we listened to fireworks from our tents, while I debated if I’d chase a dorky, pretty thru-hiker we met moments before dusk or if I’d bail down the Gale River Trail with my dad. But the woods are an interesting place that isn’t concerned with our plans – a black bear visited my tent while I laid there in darkness and went so far as to touch my head through the screen of the tent. I did not sleep much that night. I felt its musty warmth inches from me; I listened to it lumber away on the forest floor while I pressed my ears to the canvas of my scout tent floor. I felt the cool breeze enter my tent and realized this moment would be significant for the rest of my life. Long story short, I joined my dad the next morning on our great bailing of our AT adventure.

The Gale River Trail was re-routed a few years before my dad and I hiked it, to avoid a few deep river crossings. When we limped down, it still looked raw and landscaped. Today, it looks like it’s been this way forever. We S-turn away from the river, climb a bit up some log-steps, S-turn back toward the river, then away again. We miss the river, though, and its rushing excitement. We pass a hiker with an old pudgy black lab who bobs side to side like a buoy with friendliness toward Wilder and Pip. I love him dearly. Doggy head pats are shared. He and his owner are in no hurry to get anywhere, and I’d like to know their secret.

The trail comes back to the river, pools and rapids and rocks and noise! But we are too high to hop in – if Wilder jumps, I’ll find him down at the parking lot. We climb big big rocks, steep and slow. Nothing we don’t play on at home. We got big legs. I begin to wonder when we’ll get to the trail intersection where my dad and I spent the night of July 4, 2013. Before I realize it, we poke into an empty clearing with a few wooden signs pointing in different directions: Garfield is this way, Galehead is that way. And Gale River is the way we just came, the way we went once before. I drop my bag in the middle of the clearing and hunt for my Nalgene bottle. The dogs happily stick their snouts into the green bottle in search of water, splashing it all over the ground, but at least some of it gets down their throats.

I show them around the clearing. That’s where my dad pitched his tent, right there, I tell Wilder. Over there in the woods is where I pitched mine, while Pip tilts his head at me in his curious little way. A boulder that looks like it wants to topple onto the next person who plants a tent in that spot looms crookedly, covered in moss and ferns. An obvious animal trail wanders off into the woods, something I didn’t notice until the next morning twelve years ago. I’m glad the animals still hike here, too. A group of young hikers approach us, celebrating the dogs’ embodiment of freedom, happiness, and joy. “Can we pet them?” they ask. “Of course!” I cheer. “They’re super friendly, just thirsty.” The dogs ignored them for the water, mouths foaming.

There is a moment of quiet while they scratch knuckle deep into Wilder’s unruly fluff. He is a muddy marshmallow. I fill the silence with a story. “Ten years ago,” I begin, “I camped in this clearing with my dad and a bear knocked on my tent and asked how I was doing.” The hikers gasp and regale in the adventure. “No way!” someone shouts. I point again to where my tent was. “Yeah, I was terrified the entire time.” Then I point to where my dad’s tent was and add, as if I’ve told this story a hundred times, “And there is where my dad laughed at me the entire time.” They laugh along. I wave my companions off for Garfield and I lead the dogs up toward the Galehead Hut. We let a few hikers pass us. It is a freeway of hikers. Hut hikers and Franconia Ridge hikers and AT thru-hikers, perhaps.

The treeline thins, the hut gets closer. South Twin looms on our left. A hulking, round mass of tree and rock, but with walls as steep as a butte. It was the hike up – and down – the steep South Twin that knocked my old man out of our AT hike a few rounds short. Suddenly the trees open up to a mountain meadow and the Galehead Hut. Wilder and Pip greet another dog, a shepherd mix, and I let them make introductions. Sniff, sniff. Bark, bark! A girl sits on the patio of the hut with her hood pulled over her face as if the summer sun is a snowstorm – she tells me Wilder looks like a sheep. I tell her I think that every day.

We hop onto the Frost Trail, toward the summit of Galehead. The trail drops quickly and climbs back to some shrubby trees. The way we pop over the rocks makes some oncoming hikers laugh and they pat Wilder like it’s a game of Wack-A-Mole. The trail climbs steeply to the summit, I rely on my big legs to get us there. A summit cairn waits for us. I tap my shoe on the top of the cairn with a celebratory pose, my fists in the air. Wilder and Pip decide to lick the cairn. It must taste good. It is their celebration of choice. We eat cookies and tongue out water from the Nalgene and take selfies. The noseeums cluster and eat us. The summit is quiet for a few minutes just for us. Wilder ventures into the mossy woods to potty. He kicks that satisfying kick after he finishes and we leave before the next hikers appear. Pip runs to the edge of a ledge, stopping just before he spreads his flying squirrel wings to glide away. Oncoming hikers hear me yelling at the dogs, but we are all safe and we admire the vista, South Twin and the valley between us. Somewhere down there the Gale River smashes and swirls wild.

We return to our river in due time, passing through the intersection where my dad and I camped again. I find a pair of turtle-shell aviators on the ground and scoop them. Mine now. I imagine them on a black bear, looking cool as heck. They’d look cool on Wilder, too. They’re about to look cool on me. Over the course of the summer, I’ll lose them twice and realize they’re probably a gift from the Wild and if I don’t live their ethos they will leave me squinting like they left someone else. They always seem to return and I remain grateful. And I remain in pursuit of the Wild.

On the hike back, I think about how my dad and I came down this same rocky drop so long ago. I sat in the last seat of the shuttle and watched other hikers with their friends and family smiling and having fun, on their way to adventure or on their way back from one. My adventure didn’t feel over yet, but here I was, waiting to be dropped off at my car. I could have kept going for Garfield and the Franconia Ridge; I could have befriended that cute thru-hiker in her Dartmouth sweatshirt and torn-up sneakers; I could have met my dad in the Flume parking lot with a sore body and a big smile while he handed me a freshly-cracked PBR.

I looked through my reflection in the window up to the mountains I should have been climbing while the van carried me down I-93 to my car. When I returned to the Galehead River Trail parking lot in my car, my dad had his hand out for me. It was filled with tiny wild strawberries he found while he waited. I think about those strawberries every day – and I will think of them every day of my life. We all have that memory of our parents that we cherish and this is the one of my father I will take to my grave. My dad reminisces often of his mother’s loud, boisterous Irish laugh and I think of his loud, boisterous Irish laugh when I yelled, “There’s a f*ckin’ bear!” I think of the sweetness of the wild berries he picked for me when we collected ourselves the next morning. And I’ll never get over the imagery as he bathed wearing nothing but his whitey-tighties in the Gale River while I read Gatsby. I love my old man dearly. Even though we bailed on our hike, I’d have it no other way.

And I love my dogs. They might not appreciate the casual handful of wild fruit, but we drive with fury to Super Secret Ice Cream, where delights await. I wait in line with locals and out-of-state tourists alike. Fortunately I’m stand with a mom and her daughters who share muddy calves and clothing and we all regale in our post-hike reward. I walk out of the shop licking a Slopeside Farm Mint Chip cone, my favorite flavor. Two Pup Cups are peeled open and shoved into the faces of two disgusting-looking doggoes. Wilder is a gourmand and immediately sticks his snout into the treat. Pip tilts his head at me as if I am trying to feed him poison. He glares at his frozen banana and pumpkin treat with disdain. Eventually I touch it to his mouth and he licks, first with reservation, then with adoration. The dogs knock their cups over and melting Pup Cup get everywhere. They are wet, muddy, and covered in doggy ice cream. Tired and happy. We drive home and I nod to the Franconia Ridge while the dogs nod off in slumber. I turn the music up loud and feel good about the summer to come.