Backpacking a Gentian Pond Loop

Gentian Pond is in the Mahoosuc Range, one of the hardest sections of the Appalachian Trail. I hiked a one-night loop up to the AT shelter there, visiting two big waterfalls called Giant Falls and Dryad Falls on the way. My friend Ken and I had stopped by this shelter when we hiked this section in August, but the shelter and campsite had been full, so we’d skipped past it and camped a few miles south at Dream Lake.

This was a mental health hike. It being Columbus Day week, the White Mountain National Forest is overrun with tour buses and cars with out-of-state license plates. It’s not so much their presence that bothers me, but the mile-long traffic jams, in a place where there are seldom more than a few cars stopped at a red light. So, I did what I do when confronted by crowds. I headed north to the less-visited wilderness areas in the northeast corner of the WMNF.

Being a solo hike, I mapped out a loop that would bring me back to my starting point. The trails I hiked are largely maintained by the Shelburne Trails Club, a small but quite skilled trail club that maintains a nice trail network off North Road, near Philbrook Farm, just south of the Mahoosuc Trail. There are many delightful destinations along these trails, which are easy enough for younger children, although there is still plenty of hard stuff to gnaw on if you want it.

Here’s the route I took:

• Austin Brook Trail (from North Rd) – 0.4 miles
• Yellow Trail – 1.1 miles
• Gates Brook Trail – 0.5 miles
• Middle Mountain Trail – 2.1 miles
• Peabody Brook Trail – 2.3 miles
• Giant Falls Spur – 0.6 miles
• Bald Ledge Spur Trail 1.0 mile
• Dryad Trail – 1.5 miles
• Austin Brook Trail (up to shelter, then back to North Rd the next morning) 4.7 miles

Besides Gentian Pond, there are two large waterfalls on this route: Giants Falls, off the Peabody Brook Trail and Dryad Falls off the Dryad Trail. Mount Crag, Middle Mountain, and the Bald Ledge Spur Trail also have good summit views of the Androscoggin River Valley, and Dream Lake is always nice to visit at the junction of the Peabody Brook Trail and the Mahoosuc Trail (A.T.).

I started my hike at the Austin Brook Trail Head on North Road with its quirky gate, a wooden turnstile, which I’ve always viewed as a local joke. The trail is an old logging road for most of its length. Down at the bottom, it’s gravel covered with a soft bed of spruce needles that makes for pleasant walking. I walked down that for 0.4 of a mile before turning onto the Yellow Trail which climbs Mt Crag on a well-blazed trail.

The views at the summit of Crag were fogged in, so I kept going past the summit toward the Gates Brook Trail, descending steeply. I turned right onto the Gates Brook Trail, passing a wooden foot bridge on the left and continuing straight. Don’t cross that bridge. There are yellow blazes marking the trail you want straight ahead, but they’re hidden from view when you turn onto the Gates Brook Trail.

The vegetation closes in as you approach a junction with the Middle Mountain Trail. The junction is well signed although it is always helpful to carry a map for quick reference. There are a lot of short interconnected trails in Shelburne and it pays to check your position every time you come to a landmark or trail junction.

I climbed up the Middle Mountain Trail and walked right past a turn, where the trail makes a hard right. The turn is signed and flagged with orange plastic tape, but I kept on going straight, following pink tape, which is commonly used to mark trails in the Whites. It took me a while to notice that I was on the wrong trail because it was blazed in orange. I think it is a trail to First Mountain and its ledges, which were also socked in by fog. I figured out my mistake when I started losing altitude in a place where I didn’t expect to lose it. So I backtracked and found the junction that I’d accidentally walked past. Doh!

Back on the correct trail, I climbed to the open summit ledges of Middle Mountain, which are capped with a large rock that someone has helpfully spray-painted with the word “TOP”. It’s still a pretty sight. From the summit you can see the summit ledges on Bald Cap Peak. I’d stand on those same ledges later in the day and look down at the big rock on the Middle Mountain summit, which is clearly visible from them. The fog had also started to lift, so I had clearer skies the remainder of the day.

The Middle Mountain Trail continues past the summit to join the Peabody Brook Trail. The trail passes through pleasant open woods before following a narrow logging road to the trail junction. This being October and moose mating season, I half expected a bull moose to pop out of the bushes on the side of the trail and challenge me. So I sang out “Mr Moosie? Where are you?” every fifty feet or so, to alert them to my presence.

When I arrived at the Peabody Brook Trail junction, I turned right onto the trail which follows another old logging road, before narrowing to a regular hiking trail. In 0.4 miles, I came to the Giant Falls Spur, which leads to the base of Giant Falls, a huge 100+ foot waterfall which was cranking when I visited. We’d just had an inch of rain and the falls were going full blast, flooding the narrow gorge below them.

Next, I backtracked to the Peabody Brook Trail and continued climbing toward the Mahoosuc ridgeline, heading north. The trail gets much wilder past the falls, with over-reaching shrubbery (something called hobblebush) that’s so dense, you can barely see the trail at your feet. It was still wet from the rain, so my pants were quickly soaked.

The upper part of the Peabody Trail has always been wet, muddy, and half under water for as long as I can remember, so none of this really surprised me. Nine years had passed since I last hiked this trail in its entirety and it hadn’t really changed a bit. Maybe that’s a good thing.

One thing has certainly changed though and that was a new trail junction to the new Bald Ledge Spur Trail. This trail passes through a giant fern meadow, probably the result of a logging cut, to south-facing rock ledges. It’s a very new trail maintained by John Compton aka 1HappyHiker, who’s a renowned bushwhacker in the Whites. It was also mostly underwater when I hiked it, the cold rain water soaking my socks and shoes.

The ledge views were worth it though, as long as you descend all the way down to the “edge” overlooking Middle Mountain and the Androscoggin River Valley. A ledge in White Mountains parlance is usually a horizontal rock face with open views, like the top of a cliff. Hikers are drawn to them like flies.

I backtracked to the Peabody Trail and followed it past the Dryad Trail Junction to Dream Lake and its junction with the Mahoosuc Trail. I resupplied my water there, at a stream that Ken and I had used when we’d camped there in August. Then it was back to the Dryad Trail Junction, where I started hiking down the very wet Dryad Trail. I’d snowshoed this trail fairly recently with my friend Josh, when we’d also visited Gentian Pond. The trail had been under snow then, so this was the first time I’d see it in non-winter conditions.

I hiked down the trail, which is also an old logging road, to the Dryad Falls Spur Trail. The trail leads very close to the top of the falls, which drop 300 feet below. It’s a pretty spectacular view, but you can’t see the bottom. My pictures don’t do it justice.

I hiked back to the main trail and followed it down to the Austin Brook Trail junction. From here it was a 1 mile hike and climb to Gentian Pond, the lean-to-and campsite. I had two hours before sunset and wanted to get my hammock squared away, resupply my water, and cook a hearty dinner. I was tired.

The next morning I packed up and hiked out the Austin Brook Trail back to North Road. It’s generally a pretty trail, but parts of it pass forest openings that have been logged. It wasn’t really guidebook material for that reason (not pretty enough), although small stream fly fisherman will definitely be interested in the stream access it provides. Austin Brook has small native trout in it, I checked. :-)

All in all, a nice and quick 1 day backpacking trip, although you could certainly hike the complete loop in one day if you had more daylight.

Total distance: 16 miles with 4300 feet of elevation gain.

Recommended Guidebooks and Maps:

• Appalachian Mountain Club White Mountain Guide, 31st ed.
• AMC White Mountain National Forest Map Set
• White Mountains Map: New Hampshire and Maine