Saturday, July 25, 2026
This was John and my first hike in the whites since returning from Colorado’s 14-ers, and we were curious to see how we’d do with more oxygen. The weather forecast was ideal for a hike in the northern presidentials: mostly sunny and light winds.
Deciding on Adams and Madison was simple. In addition to great weather, John and I needed both mountains in July for our second GRID. Plus, there are a bunch of challenging trails to choose from. We selected the “subway” and Great Gully.
We left the house around 7am, a really late start. By about 8:45am, we were parked on the side of Route 2 and started walking toward the Appalachia trailhead at 9:01am. We took a short bushwhack to get to the Presidential Rail Trail, a multi-use trail that goes from Gorham to the Pondicherry Wildlife Refuge, about 20 miles. This avoided walking along the busy road.
A few things you notice right away about a summer hike in the white mountains of NH: the woods/trees are different, the trails are rockier and “rootier”, the air is more humid, and there are little bugs that just HAVE to get in your face-space (and they’re undeterred by bug spray). Despite all of this, I was thoroughly enjoying being back.
There are so many trails on the north side of these mountains. We took Maple Walk to Sylvan Way to Amphibrach, and followed that trail 1.9 miles to the junction with King Ravine Trail.
Unfortunately, and I hate to admit it, we did not go through the actual “Subway.” This is because we got off-trail. Instead of maneuvering through caves between boulders, we navigated on top of them. I’d rather squeeze through small crevices than to gingerly balance on these boulders to avoid falling into these crevices. There were times that we got “cliffed out” and had to backtrack. Eventually, voices directed us on where the trail was. Even though I didn’t get all of the fun caves, I found one on my own. It was tight, and I had to push my pack through first. I got scraped up a bit, but it’s all part of the fun.
The Great Gully Trail is steep, bouldery, and slick. The white mountains don’t use to the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS) to distinguish between the difficulty of the terrain/trail, so it’s hard to know for sure, but I wonder if some of the moves on this route are class-3.
Gulfside Trail is part of the Appalachian Trail. When you are on this part of the AT, you’re above treeline from Mt. Madison to Mt. Eisenhower, approximately 8 miles. For a south-bound thru hiker, the AT changes from the Gulfside Trail to the Crawford Path once you summit Mt. Washington. The official AT only goes over the summits of Madison, Washington, Pierce, and Jackson; a hiker skirts around Adam, Jefferson, Monroe, and Eisenhower.
I met a thru hiker years ago (“Dutch Oven” was his trail name) on completely different part of the AT (Ethan Pond Trail). Surprisingly, I saw him again a few days later at the Carter Notch Hut. I asked him how that could be. He told me that he did the Presidential part of the AT in a single day, summiting all of the mountains, and that it kicked his butt. He had to take a couple of zero days in Gorham to recover.
Our original plan for getting back to the trailhead was to take Airline until Scar Trail branched off and connected with Valley Way. We scrapped this plan because we wasted so much time lost on top of boulders. A benefit from our late start was that others had started early and already finished, so there were less people to deal with on busy Valley Way.
There comes a point on almost every hike where you’re just ready to be done, out of the woods, and off your feet. I especially felt this when we were approaching people, and I smelled cigarette smoke. We got around them as quickly as we could, and got off of Valley Way and onto Fallsway. This trail runs parallel to Valley Way (you can easily see people from either trail) but is closer to Snyder Brook and many falls along the way. John and I took a break at Tama Fall and enjoyed the cold water and solitude. And maybe one of us took a quick little skinny dip.
Other hikes you might like:
Adventuring with Mel and John 