Angus
Member
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2005
- Messages
- 961
- Points
- 16
Got the idea of hiking this after skiing at Gunstock this winter. This would be a good hike for a family with children older than 7 or 8 years old.
We (my 9 year old son and I) took the brook stream trail (yellow slash designation) which can easily be found between the horse stalls & the summit quad lift just to the left of the gravel service road.
The trail runs along a brook and occasionally jumps out and across the ski trail network. It is an easy climb with minimal amount of rocks, obstacles, stream crossings or roots. My son went right up with his only complaint being the excessive amount of mosquitos/black flies (note: we started at 8 AM).
At the top of the trail (done in an hour), we took the blue trail to the top of mt. belnap which was marked about 1/2 mile. At the top of mt. belnap there is a fire tower (along with another communications tower) that puts you about 25 feet off the ground. The views north on a clear day would be very good. Given the haze, we could only see the outline of the sandwich/ossipee range but the lakes and islands are fun to look at.
we retraced our steps back down the blue trail and then summitted mt. gunstock via the remaining 2/10 miles of brook trail. we came down the service road. the footing (loose gravel) was very poor and my son (in sneakers) slipped and fell a couple of times. I would recommend taking an alternative path down - plus the walk down isn't particularly attractive.
We were done in less than 3 hours.
We (my 9 year old son and I) took the brook stream trail (yellow slash designation) which can easily be found between the horse stalls & the summit quad lift just to the left of the gravel service road.
The trail runs along a brook and occasionally jumps out and across the ski trail network. It is an easy climb with minimal amount of rocks, obstacles, stream crossings or roots. My son went right up with his only complaint being the excessive amount of mosquitos/black flies (note: we started at 8 AM).
At the top of the trail (done in an hour), we took the blue trail to the top of mt. belnap which was marked about 1/2 mile. At the top of mt. belnap there is a fire tower (along with another communications tower) that puts you about 25 feet off the ground. The views north on a clear day would be very good. Given the haze, we could only see the outline of the sandwich/ossipee range but the lakes and islands are fun to look at.
we retraced our steps back down the blue trail and then summitted mt. gunstock via the remaining 2/10 miles of brook trail. we came down the service road. the footing (loose gravel) was very poor and my son (in sneakers) slipped and fell a couple of times. I would recommend taking an alternative path down - plus the walk down isn't particularly attractive.
We were done in less than 3 hours.