Decided to take a day for a solo hike before the Kilkenny Range traverse, and bag the rest of the 4ks in the pemi loop on my list.

First stop was an outlook before Zealand looking toward Carrigain, which I’m planning to be the last on the list to hit.

Second stop was Zeacliff Pond. Pretty cool with the cliff, hard to capture.

Then up to Zealand, neat little sign and a cairn.

On the way up to South Twin ran into a couple of grouse. This one was kinda oblivious or dumb not sure which. Right in the middle of the trail. Just figure how close I was, took this picture at 28mm. Could have touched it with my trekking pole. I opted for scaring it off, probably best for them to scurry away when people are around.

From the top of South Twin looking towards the Franconia Ridge line.

From the top of South Twin looking towards Washington.

From the Galehead outlook looking towards the hut. Galehead is a wooded summit not much to grab a photo of. I debated whether adding in Galehead was a good idea for this hike. Decided to figure how I felt on the top of South Twin and I felt pretty good. Was beating the book time by quite a bit at that point so adding it in was doable. Made for a long day though.

Refilled my water at the Galehead hut and stop to talk to some hut hopers.

This was and out an back so I decide to grab another photo on top of twin. Climbing twin from Galehead is an an effort but it was mostly down hill from this point.

I thought this was the top of Guyot the last time I was there. Its acutally a side summit/hump that glows a bit in the sunlight compared to everything else because of its different composition of low lying vegetation that grows on the top in opposition to the alpine trees on neighboring summits.

Serendipitously this was almost exactly a year date in which I also sat and had some dinner at the tail end of a solo hike. I like this spot its a 360 degree panorama of most of the whites. It’s a good place to sit and relax despite what you have to do to get there. The cairn is big enough to buffet the prevailing winds from the west while having a seat for a bit. I had some mac and cheese that I had made and proceeded to finish the journey.

Just one more picture coming down Zealand, this ladder is a lot less intimidating than it appears. The bigger issue is how much longer the trail grows on the way back.

It was a big day. Here was my track for the trip