July 25, 2026

Start/End: Pinkham Notch Visitor Center

Peaks: "Boott Spur" (5,492')

Elevation Gain: 5,125 ft

RT Mileage: 15.04 mi

Duration: 12 hours, 21 minutes

Rock Difficulty: Class 2+

Perhaps the view that struck me most during my Presi Traverse, and there were many contenders, was peering into the expanse of the Great Gulf from its upper rim on the northwest shoulder of Washington. For my next hike, I decided to check the Great Gulf Trail off my bucket list and get a more intimate perspective of the Gulf from its floor and particularly from the headwall scramble up to the rim, checking off another Terrifying 25 route in the process. Since the Great Gulf suspension bridge is still closed, I would hike into the Gulf using Old Jackson Road from Pinkham to bypass the closed bridge, and this would allow me to descend back to Pinkham using the Boott Spur Trail, my favorite trail on Mount Washington, instead of having to retrace my steps down the headwall.

We arrived at Pinkham at 7:00 AM to find that the parking lot had just filled up, and we were forced to park in an overflow lot on the other side of the bridge. Within minutes, the overflow lot was nearly full too. I had never seen Pinkham, or in fact any trailhead in the Whites (other than maybe Falling Waters), this busy, even on other bluebird summer weekends in previous years; Instagram has forever ruined my beloved White Mountains.

Fortunately, as we set out on Old Jackson Road towards the edge of the Great Gulf Wilderness, not a single soul from the massive throng at the visitor center followed in our footsteps. Despite its grandeur, the Great Gulf remains one of the most remote wilderness areas in the Whites and maybe on the entire East Coast, a true diamond in the dust. I knew from experience that Boott Spur on the way down would be nearly as quiet, drawing a miniscule percentage of the traffic that Tuckerman, Huntington, and Lion Head do, and indeed we wound up having nearly the entire route to ourselves, even on the busiest of summer Saturdays. This entire month for me has been a masterclass in steering clear of the crowds, from Jefferson snowfield (also in the Great Gulf Wilderness) for the Fourth to a mid-week Presi Traverse. Summer will be over soon, and, by the next time I'm back home for break, the first snowfall will have driven the casuals back home to Boston or crammed onto ski resort lifts, and solitude will reign in the White Mountains once more.

Old Jackson Road ascends gently out of Pinkham Notch for 2.0 miles before reaching the Auto Road, where we crossed and continued onto what was now the Madison Gulf Trail as it entered the Great Gulf Wilderness on the other side of the road and exited the hardwood forest for the conifers at the fairly low elevation of 2,700 ft. 0.2 miles later we emerged out of the trees onto a little rocky outcrop known as Low's Bald Spot. Despite its proximity to an Auto Road parking lot, we had the spot and its unique views of the northern Presis all to ourselves.

On the other side of Low's Bald Spot, the Madison Gulf Trail descends quickly back into the hardwood forest and continues descending all the way to 2,200 ft in the floor of the Great Gulf, meeting the Great Gulf Trail on the other side of the closed suspension bridge where I was forced to turn back when I attempted the trail last summer. From here, we continued on the Great Gulf Trail past Clam Rock, the site of a backcountry tensite at 2,400 ft, into lush, old-growth mixed forest, following the West Branch of the Peabody River upstream into the heart of the U-shaped glacial valley.

At 2,900 ft, right around where the trail fully re-enters the coniferous forest, we reached a viewpoint on the bank of the West Branch with an incredible view upstream towards Jefferson's Knee.

At 3,600 ft, the trail crosses the West Branch briefly and intersects the Sphinx Trail, another Terrifying 25 route which ascends steeply to Sphinx Col betwen Clay and Jefferson, before crossing back over to the southern bank of the river. Water levels have been low amid the drought this month, so the crossings were a breeze. Past this junction, the Great Gulf Trail ascends slightly more steeply for the last 0.7 miles to Spaulding Lake, a beautiful tarn located just below treeline at the base of the Great Gulf headwall where the expansive U-shaped valley transitions into a traditional glacial cirque, although much bigger than the more famous cirques in the Whites. Spaulding Lake is also the source of the West Branch and bears a striking visual resemblance to Chimney Pond at the base of Katahdin's South Basin.

We stashed the poles at Spaudling Lake in preparation for the headwall scramble, but the base of the headwall turned out to be another quarter-mile away. While the trail up to this point had been fairly nice by Whites standards, this next quarter-mile appeared largely unmaintained and crossed several of the streams that flow out of the cirque into Spaulding Lake along the way, and we wished we had kept the poles out a little longer. At around 4,400 ft, the trail finally broke out of the coniferous forest and began steeply ascending the lower part of the headwall. From here, we would ascend 1,600 vertical feet in 0.6 miles, making for one of the steepest and longest scrambles in the Whites. It was around 1:30 PM when we started. By the time we topped out on the rim of the headwall, it would be almost 4:00.

The lower part of the headwall is thick in alpine vegetation, but occasional glimpses were still had into the glacial valley we had just hiked out of, and its U-shape became apparent in a way it hadn't been from its floor or even from the ridgeline as I had previously seen it during my Presi Traverse. Beginning at around 4,600 ft, the trail follows a rock gully which doubles as an above-ground, above-treeline alpine streambed, the first time I've ever seen one in the Whites, and the views began to open up.

The trail follows the rock gully/alpine streambed for roughly 400 vertical feet. This section constitutes the technical crux of the route, with sustained Class 2 scrambling and even a handful of Class 3 sections that earn the trail its Class 2+ rating over wet, mossy rock on an exposed, unrelenting headwall. I have now hiked 11 of the Terrifying 25 trails, but this was the first time I've truly been scared on one of them. At long last, at 5,000 ft, the stream moved underground and soon the gully opened out onto a broad talus slope, and the remainder of the route up the headwall became fully visible for the first time.

At this point we were nearly halfway up the headwall and yet the other half of the headwall above us was still grander in scale than any other glacial cirque I've ever hiked in the East. The trail from this point on was almost entirely unmarked, and the remaining 900-vertical-foot Class 2 headwall scramble turned into a route-finding exercise. This talus scramble was some of the most fun I've ever had on a hike. The experience was comparable to the South Ridge route on Grays in Colorado, which I completed four years ago for my first 14er. Meanwhile, the view back into the valley below us looked like Yosemite.

The talus slope ends at 5,800 ft, and the trail then follows one more rock gully for the last 150 vertical feet up to the rim. Fortunately, this one was dry.

As alluded to earlier, we topped out onto the rim of the Great Gulf at around 4:00. From here, the race was on to get all the way back down to Pinkham before dark. We took first the Gulfside Trail and then hopped a few steps over to the Cog as we descended the northwest slopes of Washington. Both of these trails were still absolute highways even this late in the afternoon, but we quickly found solitude again as we turned onto the Westside Trail. This trail contours nicely around the western side of the Washington summit cone for 0.8 miles before meeting the Crawford Path and Davis Path. From this three-way junction, we were now on familiar territory and made quick progress over the flat expanse of Bigelow Lawn for 1.4 miles on Davis Path before reaching the summit (not a 4,000er due to prominence) of Boott Spur. 

From Boott Spur, we would descend the Boott Spur Trail the remainder of the way to Pinkham. In the mornings, this trail is among the most scenic on Washington, but it was far less spectacular in the afternoon backlight. More poignantly for us, the Boott Spur Trail is the smoothest and most consistent descent back to Pinkham on the eastern side of Washington, making for quick progress when we were in desperate need of it. Having the trail all to ourselves wasn't bad either. Unfortunately, the trail does join back up with the crowded Tuckerman Ravine Trail at the end, but only for the last 0.4 miles. We were back at the visitor center a little before 8:00, just as golden hour was beginning to give way to blue hour, and yet another 10/10 hike was in the books.