40.2 miles, 12,000 feet gained, and thirteen mountains in 55 hours. Probably the most mentally and physically challenging weekend of my life. It might sound crazy or impossible, but we did it! Bondcliff, Mt. Bond, West Bond, Mt. Guyot, South Twin Mtn, North Twin Mtn, Galehead Mtn, Mt. Garfield, Mt. Lafayette, Mt. Lincoln, Little Haystack Mtn, Mt. Liberty, and Mt. Flume for a counter-clockwise Pemi Loop. Man was it an experience!

Day 1: Friday, July 13, 2018

The day started out early with a quick breakfast in Sugar Hill before heading out to the Lincoln Woods trailhead. My friend Josh was my hiking buddy for this loop. It’s always nice to have other people to hike with especially on a three day backpacking trip, and I was very thankful that he carried some shared equipment to reduce my pack weight. At the trailhead we weighed our packs with food and full water bladders. Mine came in at 26.5 lbs, which I was happy with after cutting many extra things out the night before. Then we crossed the suspension bridge and started our loop.

Lincoln Woods trail was almost completely flat for the five miles before we reached the Bondcliff Trail. We took a short detour to Franconia Falls and debated going for a quick swim, but we wanted to press on for timing purposes and hiking wet for the rest of the day didn’t sound too enticing. After almost two flat miles on the Bondcliff trail, we came across the last stream crossing with guaranteed running water, so we filtered two liters each and kept on going. We made it up the steep part of the Bondcliff trail to Bondcliff just before noon.

,Bondcliff was easily the highlight of the whole weekend for me. I’ve been looking forward to this hike for a long time, but since it’s so remote it’s hard to find a good time to do it. We got a few pictures on the cliff and some of the amazing views to the east. This was an awesome place for lunch, so PB&J’s and trail mix fueled us for our next peak, Mt. Bond.

Bond was another summit with crazy amazing views. It was a short hike from Bondcliff so we only stopped for long enough to take in the views and have a sip of water. We then hiked past the West Bond Spur down to the Guyot campsite to refill our now empty water bladders. Then we dropped our heavy bags and quickly zipped back up to West Bond for the third summit of the day.

I think what I loved most about the Bonds was how remote they were. No matter which way you look there’s no sign of civilization in sight. It was truly breathtaking. We would have loved to stay at Guyot campsite, but it was only 4:30 when we finished West Bond so we figured with a long day tomorrow it would be better to keep going and get some mileage out of the way now with the four extra hours of daylight. Although it’s not an official 4,000 footer we bagged Mt. Guyot as well since it was so close.

About an hour before sunset we got to the summit of South Twin and decided to make supper in front of the sunset. We set up the cooking equipment and boiled some water with this great little backpacking stove for a much needed warm meal. I had the Mountain House Chicken and Dumplings freeze dried meal, and Josh had the Backpackers Pantry Pad Thai. After being pretty skeptical at first, I was pleasantly surprised that chicken and biscuits was absolutely delicious. It tasted exactly like chicken pot pie, and sitting on the summit under the sunset eating a warm meal was heaven. Unfortunately, Josh couldn’t exactly say the same about the underwhelming Pad Thai. I guess freeze dried meals are pretty hit or miss, and that one definitely missed the mark.

After dinner and an amazing sunset, we hiked a little ways down the North Twin Spur until we found a good spot far off the trail to camp. We set everything up as night quickly fell and turned in early to prepare ourselves for a 3:45 wake up time in order to catch the sunrise on North Twin in the morning. Friday’s totals came to roughly 16.4 miles, 5070 feet gained, and 13 hours and 25 minutes on the trail.

Day 2: Saturday, July 14, 2018

The 3:45 alarm came too quickly waking us from our much needed sleep. We slowly packed up camp and got on the trail well before first light with our headlamps handy. We made it up to North Twin just as the sun was rising, but to our dismay the lookout on top of the mountain faced west! We scurried down to a clearing of blowdowns to see it while we drank our morning coffee, but watching from South Twin may have been a better option in hindsight. The colors were beautiful though even through the trees. We made coffee and watched for a few minutes before backtracking to South Twin to start the long stretch ahead of us for the day.

It was a steep descent to Galehead Hut where they were just about to serve breakfast. Here we filled up our water bladders and headed out to find a spot to make our own meal. We debated waiting for the guests to be done and grabbing leftovers but ended up deciding that making our own breakfast would be easier. The two of us split a Mountain House Breakfast Skillet and some apple cinnamon instant oatmeal which was actually a pretty great breakfast. I love the lower sugar oatmeal with a peanut butter packet mixed in because it gives me the extra energy I need on the trail!

After breakfast, we headed up to Galehead Mountain for our sixth 4,000 footer of the trip. It was a wooded peak so we tagged it and kept moving. The forecast showed a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon, so we were trying to hustle our way through the ridges before it became too dangerous to go across. When there’s thunder and lightning on the ridge it’s really unsafe to be up there. I know it sounds crazy that you could get hit by lightning, but the AMC book says it so it must be true!

There’s no access to water until Liberty Springs tentsite, our goal for the day, almost eight miles later. By this time we were already feeling tired, but we had to keep pushing in order to make it to the campsite before dark.

The trek up to the summit of Mt. Garfield was short but steep. I didn’t drink enough water the day before, so I was getting cramps above my knees and in my quads. Not to mention I still had blisters from hiking Willey, Field, and Tom last weekend that were giving me grief. The summit of Mt. Garfield was actually really cool with the foundation of an old fire tower marking the highest point. It would have been better if it wasn’t super foggy. It was starting to rain at this point so we continued moving towards the summit of Mt. Lafayette.

The portion of the Garfield Ridge trail between the summit of Garfield and Lafayette is one of the most difficult stretches on a counter-clockwise Pemi Loop. Not only was this section tedious and difficult under good circumstances, but the weather was not in our favor. I don’t have any pictures from this point on because the weather made it impossible to see more than 50 feet in front of us.

I was also aware that Lafayette is known for its false peaks when approaching from the north. I wasn’t sure how many there were, but it must have been at least seven or eight. Scrambling up slippery rock faces with very heavy water-filled packs, we reached every false peak hoping it would be the summit. No luck. The worst part was that the visibility was terrible we couldn’t see the final summit at all, making us think that every peak was the top. Lafayette was playing mind games on us! This was really demoralizing especially because we were in pain and still pretty far from our final destination of the day. To be exact, we were at mile 12 and had 4 more long miles to go.

I wanted to enjoy the summit of Lafayette but couldn’t because the wind was gusting 40mph threatening to blow us right off the ridge. We still had two more mountains to climb and a steep descent to the campground. I had been singing my favorite song, Wagon Wheel, over and over in my head for the past four miles at this point just to try to keep my mind off my aching feet. I decided at this point that some tunes might motivate me so I turned on my favorite playlist. The music gave me a second wind that allowed me to keep pushing through Lincoln and Little Haystack. I honestly am not sure which bump along the ridge was the summit of Lincoln, but I know we definitely went over it at some point. It was a nice surprise to realize that we had already passed the summit of Lincoln when we reached the Little Haystack summit sign.

As we finally reached treeline it was starting to get dark. We had calculated and planned on arriving at Liberty Springs by 5:00, but our detour to 13 Falls added a solid three hours to that estimate for an 8:00 arrival. The wind was so strong and the terrain was so difficult that we were moving slightly slower than book time.

Nearing mile 16 for the day, we finally came to the Liberty Springs Trail crossing. I have never been so happy to see a trail sign in my life. We hobbled down the steep 0.3 miles to the campsite and got a platform just as it was getting too dark to see without a headlamp. We were the last ones to make it to the camp at 8:45 and made a quick dinner of Mountain House Beef Stroganoff and Backpackers Pantry Fettuccine Alfredo with Chicken. I think they were both pretty good but to be honest I was so tired that my memory is a little foggy. We turned in for the night after one of the longest, most challenging days I’ve ever experienced on the trail. Our totals for the day were roughly 16 miles, 5,870 feet gained, and a whopping 16 hours and 20 minutes on the trail. Yikes!

Day 3: Sunday, July 15, 2018

Waking up late, I felt rested from our journey the day before. I was sore and I had some nasty blisters on my feet, but the weather was looking good and today was our shortest day mileage wise. We chatted with some other hikers while eating oatmeal and Mountain House Biscuits and Gravy. The biscuits were a little chalky but otherwise alright and I mixed in some protein almond butter for some extra energy. Josh made us coffee with his Javapress system which was a great pick me up to get us started. Everyone at the campsite was really nice and it was fun to talk to about our adventures! We took our time breaking camp and left pretty late around 10:15.

The summit of Mt. Liberty was a short hike from the campsite, so the steep incline warmed us up quickly. The clouds hadn’t quite blown through yet, but the summit was a beautiful sight. The large rocks stuck straight up into the sky yielding a really defined summit. Although my legs were shaky from the day before, I carefully climbed to the top of one of the pointy rocks for the sake of the picture. We then pushed on to Mt. Flume, our last peak of the trip.

By the time we got to the summit of Mt. Flume, the clouds had lifted giving us an amazing view. It was our thirteenth and final mountain and the eleventh official 4,000 footer that we summited throughout the trip. This was really breathtaking after yesterday’s lack of any views at all. We could see across the valley and past Owl’s Head to Bondcliff where we had been just two days before. The Pemigewasset Wilderness looked so vast with our previous peaks so far in the distance. It was crazy to see how far we trekked in just 48 hours. We had a quick snack at the summit of Flume and started down the Osseo Trail for our final descent.

The Osseo Trail is famous for its wooden staircases, but we were glad to be going down them and not up. There were a few beautiful viewpoints along the steep descent as well, but once we got about a mile down the trail it flattened out. We agreed that it had been a great trip, but we were definitely ready for it to be over. The flat 3 mile stretch of the Osseo trail felt like it went on forever, but we finally made it back to Lincoln Woods. For this mile and a half stretch back to the car we saw countless families, bikers, and people wearing sandals, a good sign that we were close.

We finally reached the suspension bridge to the parking lot at 2:25 and were beaming with joy. We made it! I’ve never been more happy to see a hot car that had been sitting in the sun for three days. Feelings of accomplishment and pride washed over me as I dropped my heavy pack and took off my boots. I can’t even explain in words how good it felt to be done, but at the same time I was kind of sad that it was over. I turned on my phone, which had been on airplane mode for the last three days and slowly accepted the reality that we were back to civilization. After some much needed showers we headed to the Woodstock Inn for some well deserved burgers. Our day three totals were 7.4 miles, 1,060 vertical feet, and 4 hours and 10 minutes of hiking time. This doesn’t seem like much compared to the previous two days, but the long, flat sections were almost as mentally challenging as the steep, rocky ones.

Overall, the Pemi Loop was an amazing experience that I wouldn’t trade for the world. It was definitely the most difficult hike I’ve done so far and probably the biggest physical test I’ve ever been up against. It was also mentally draining at many points, but that was overcome by how rewarding I felt at the end. I learned a lot about myself throughout the trip and gained a greater respect for the thru-hikers we saw along the way.

This hike really gave meaning to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s quote, “life is a journey, not a destination.” Cliche I know, but the fact that we started and ended in the same place after going through so many experiences and seeing so many things still baffles me a little bit. Even though it was crazy difficult, there was not one point at which I wished to be anywhere else in the world.

The Extended Pemi Heart via. Lincoln Woods Tr, Bondcliff Tr, West Bond Spur, The Twinway, North Twin Spur, Twin Brook Tr, Franconia Brook Tr, Garfield Ridge Tr, Franconia Ridge Tr, and Osseo Tr.

Bondcliff (4265 ft),  Mt. Bond (4698 ft), West Bond (4540 ft), South Twin Mtn (4902 ft), North Twin Mtn (4761 ft), Galehead Mtn (4024 ft), Mt. Garfield (4500 ft), Mt. Lafayette (5260 ft), Mt. Lincoln (5089 ft), Little Haystack Mtn, Mt. Liberty (4459 ft), and Mt. Flume (4328 ft).