October 10, 2026

Start/End: Great Gulf Trailhead, Rt. 16

Peaks: Middle Carter (4,610')

Elevation Gain: 3,800 ft

RT Mileage: 10.88 mi

Duration: 6 hours, 5 minutes

Rock Difficulty: Class 1

Capturing snowliage (snow + foliage) in the fall has been on my bucket list for a while. A perfect opportunity presented itself conveniently on the first day of fall break this year, with about an inch of snow having coated the Presidentials the previous evening, fall color still peaking in the valley, and summit fog quickly clearing to bluebird skies in the morning. For my route, I originally planned to ascend the Imp Trail up to the ridge and then traverse all the way over to Hight for the best views in the Carter Range, but ended up turning back at Middle Carter, deciding that the views from below the summit and from my short detour to Imp Ledges on the way up were more than enough.

After a quick turnaround from getting back home at 10:00 PM the previous evening, I was up at 4:00 in the morning on Saturday, and we left at around 4:45. As we drove through Pinkham in the early morning the sky was already clear above us and fog was beginning to dissipate around the summits of the Presidentials, revealing a fresh coating of snow above treeline. We arrived at the Great Gulf TH at 7:45, and started hiking just after 8:00.

After crossing Route 16, we cut through Camp Dodge and soon linked up with the Imp Trail, beginning to ascend steadily up the western slopes of the Carter Range. At 2,900 ft, the canopy of yellow and orange hardwoods above us transitioned abruptly into conifers. At 3,200 ft, we passed the fork with the North Carter Trail and continued on the Imp Trail for 0.9 miles as it began to contour around the drainage basin of Imp Brook and then onto a western ridge of North Carter before finally reaching the rocky outcrop of Imp Ledges at around 9:30. The morning sun cast shadows on the conifers on the western slopes of the range while perfectly illuminating the peak foliage lower down in the valley and the coating of snow above treeline on the Presis, all contrasting beautifully with bluebird skies above to create without a doubt the most magical fall scene I have seen in the Whites.

While the snowline was comfortably above treeline across the valley on the Presis, it was at least a few hundred feet lower on the Carter Range, since the tops of the trees higher up on the ridge above us were coated in white. From Imp Ledges, we first hiked the 0.9 miles back to the fork and then ascended the North Carter Trail 1.2 miles up to the ridge. Above 4,400 ft, we indeed started seeing conifers coated in white, although apparently mainly in rime rather than snow since the trail remained bare.

At 4,500 ft, we gained the ridge and began following the Carter-Moriah Trail for 0.6 miles over some ups and downs to the summit of Middle Carter. The summit itself is forested, but the trail opens up a couple of times just below the summit with views to the north, towards the Presis, and into the Wild River Wilderness to the east.

We summited Middle Carter right around noon. At this point, we decided we had basically already seen everything we had intended to see and that 2.5 miles further along the ridge to Hight for a slightly better view would just not be worth it. Instead, we turned around and descended fairly quickly back to the trailhead, getting back to the car around 2:30 PM. We were back home at around 6:00, leaving us the rest of the evening to watch an incredible slate of primetime college football games including Kentucky's upset win over LSU in OT and Georgia's first win in Tuscaloosa in 20 years. You could not script a more perfect Saturday.