The Royces via East Royce and Basin Pond (White Mountain National Forest)

The Royces via East Royce and Basin Pond (White Mountain National Forest)

Hike Type: Traverse

Distance: 8.48 miles

Elevation: 2,448 feet

Time: 6 hours, 56 minutes (5 hours, 47 minutes moving)
Hiking Challenges: 52 With-a-View

The Hike 

Day 2 of vacation! I said goodbye to Sarah and hello to Gen! This would be the first time Gen and I were going to hike together since her bachelorette party up Mt. Adams & Mt. Madison last September, which was super exciting! I was feeling reasonably exhausted from yesterday's hike up Washington, over to Isolation, and down Glen Boulder. The original plan was to do an epic 15-miler around the Royces, Basin, Blueberry Mountain, and Speckled Mountain, but we pivoted to doing just a traverse of the Royces since Gen hadn't hiked in a while and my legs were effectively made of semi-h.ardened concrete. Our alarms went off at 6:00am and we dilly-dallied out the door by 7:00am. It was a beautiful, clear, cool morning.

The original plan was to park at Brickett Place, but then I realized that wasn't necessary since we were cutitng the planned hike short, and we dropped Gen's car at the Basin Pond parking lot, which was STUNNING. We even heard a Loon as we took a few photos of the pond and high ravine walls. We did notice some automobile glass in the parking lot, but tried to not think much about it (and not leave any valuables). We hopped into my car, and drove on the wonderfully recently paved ME-113 to the East Royce Trail trailhead. We were the only car there, we bugsprayed up, made sure Gen had her keys (while still giggling at Sarah leaving her keys in my car yesterday), and got to work!

[8:18am - East Royce Trail] 

We got started on the East Royce Trail, initially swimming through bugs, but thankfully they soon left us alone. We crossed over a mostly dry drainage followed by an easy hop across another stream before leaving the Forest Protection Area. After the FPA, there was a view of a trickling cascade that would likely be wonderful after a rain. 

We found a few frogs (would the ratio today be better than yesterday's 9 frogs to 21 humans??), a few slugs, one impressive shelf fungus, and then continued to climb on a steep, eroded trail. Gen and I spent much of this time just catching each other up in life since we hadn't seen each other since our ski trip back in February. Time is crazy!

[9:14am - East Royce Trail/Royce Connector] 

After a good amount of climbing, we hit the junction with the Royce Connector. From here, the trail was steep and eroded, then steep and slabby. Thankfully, the slabs were dry! We crossed a ton of flowering sheep laurel, which was beautiful. 

Slowly, views began to show themselves as we scrambled upwards. The main view we got was over to Speckled Mountain, which is now officially a hanging chard of mine. After a short walking break, we were soon BLOWN AWAY by the summit view from East Royce!

[9:37am - East Royce Summit] 

The view was really spectacular. The primary view was of South Baldface's iconic ledges, South Baldface's summit, North Baldface's summit, with West Royce the foreground and Mt. Meader over it's left shoulder. Behind West Royce was Carter Dome, Mt. Hight, and Mt. Washington! It was crazy to think about how I was just up there yesterday. Through the trees we could make our the rest of the Carter-Moriah Range on the right and Kearsarge on the left. There was a light breeze, no bugs, and only one person who appeared just as we were leaving (3 frogs, 1 person so far).

[9:55am - East Royce Trail] 

Our descent was straightforward and uneventful, and we soon landed at the Royce Connector junction - time for a new adventure!

[10:13am - Royce Connector] 

For better or for worse, the Royce Connector set the precident for the rest of the hike. Desolate, beautiful, but COVERED in spider webs. The trail started pretty tight but soon opened up to a standard trail width. There was a really pretty ledgy area with some tree views. This was a short trail, so soon enough we were at the terminus!

[10:22am - Royce Trail] 

The quality of the trail improved once on the Royce Trail and the woods were just beautiful. Tragically, I still had to wave a pole out in front of me to get the webs, but my eyes were delighted! There were endless mossy, old boardwalks in various states of disrepair. The Royce Trail gradually descended to the col between East and West Royce, traversing another slightly overgrown, web-covered stretch near the NH/ME border. We were both upset that there was no sign or marker (at least that we noticed) marking the border - boo!

We started to climb again gently along a neat stretch of trail that was bordered by a high rock wall belonging to West Royce on the left, and just after reaching the height-of-land in the col, we descended to the junction with the Burnt Mill Brook Trail.

[10:46am - Royce Trail/Burnt Mill Brook Trail] 

From here, the Royce Trail became steep and rugged again. Gen described this climb as "less stupid" than East Royce, so that's a win! We also had a fantastic breeze on this climb, which made the quality of life much better. 

We caught a glimpse of the steep cliffs under our feet as the trail rounded a corner, and then the Royce Trail continued to climb more gently, passing a standing view toward Pleasant Mountain in Maine just after the cliff peek-a-view. 

From here, the trail would alternate between steep scrambles and lovely, soft walking until we eventually reached the terminus of the Royce Trail and the beginning of the Basin Rim Trail!

[11:26am - West Royce Summit] 

Before we continued on the Basin Rim Trail, we stepped over a massive pile of moose poop and followed the short, lightly used path on the right soon after the junction sign to the former fire tower footings on West Royce. The footings were super neat, with some wood, cords, and miscelaneous metals scattered about (along with some porcupine poop). We took a sit and snack here and fantasized about what it used to look like up here.

[11:45am - Basin Rim Trail] 

We got moving again, now on the Basin Rim Trail, for the longest segment of trail for the day. Overall, this trail was absolutely wild and beautiful, but boy, did it feel long! Somehow, the spiderwebs intensified in this area, which was a solid bummer. There were some bog bridges over DEEP voids of mud, but thankfully, it was all easily traversable. 

The Basin Rim Trail eventually entered a more slabby area with standing views over to the Carters, but I was so overwhelmed by spider webs that I didn't even get any photos. The trail became overgrown again before heading fully back into the woods. This was more or less a theme for this trail. Again, it was absolutely beautiful, but man, it was a mental challenge!

We found a few more piles of moose poop and a few moose prints here and there, but nothing too recent. There were a few ups and many downs, with only a few steeper spots. We were having fun tracking our hike, though. My watch was tracking the same number of miles as the book, my AllTrails app was tracking the same number of elevation feet as the book, while Gen's Apple Watch was tracking more miles than me, and Gen's Garmin (yes, she was wearing two watches) was somehow multiple miles behind?

We had one particularly steep descent to a flat area where we took a bathroom break and began to hear a light pitter-patter of rain drops... and then more... and then more! Thankfully, it never rained too hard or for too long, but it was just another thing, if you know what I mean. Eventually, we came to the particularly difficult scramble that was described in the White Mountain Guide, but it wasn't too bad.

Now that we had lost a good amount of elevation, there were some areas with ferns and hobblebush that keps our legs nice and wet. Eventually, we found a view! We could see Mt. Meader and Basin Pond. Mt. Meader has a really cool open area that was super visible from here, and I wonder if the Mt. Meader Trail followed that stretch, since I was on it a couple of autumns ago.

From the viewpoint, the trail was a bit grassy and difficult to follow, with a few blowdowns to jungle-gym through, but soon we landed at Rim Junction!

[1:34pm - Basin Rim Trail/Rim Junction] 

[1:38pm - Viewpoint on Basin Rim Trail] 

At the junction, I mentioned the viewpoint that was 0.1 miles down the trail. Gen was tired and didn't want to go, but I pushed for it and she soon agreed. Thank goodness the guidebook doesn't lie - it was an easy 0.1 miles exactly to a fantastic view of The Basin, basin Pond, and Mt. Meader! We stopped for one more sit and snack up here. It was a bit buggier, but still nothing horrible. I cracked a Celsius at this viewpoint and did some Civilized Hiking back to Rim Junction.

[1:51pm - Basin Trail] 

We took turns running into the Wild River Wilderness from Rim Junction for funsies and then headed on down! There was a small view right at the beginning and then the trail began to steeply descend along the base of the headwall cliffs, which was really rugged, wild, and unique. 

The sky began to gently rain again, but we rarely felt any raindrops. The trail was steep, but not horrible. The hardest part of the trail was truly the leaves - it felt like autumn! There was one area where the trail became a bit tricky to follow with massive boulders - we wondered if they were here because of glaciers, from falling off the cliff, or some combination of both?

[2:31pm - Hermit Falls Loop, upper] 

I noticed that we were not hitting any spider webs here, so there must have been someone else here today. We were at an official count of 3 frogs and 1 person, though! The steep descent continued to the Hermit Falls loop, which led us to the beautiful Hermit Falls - a multi-tiered mostty waterfall with multiple light streams cascading down. 

[2:41pm - Basin Trail] 

After Hermit Falls, the trail became basically flat for the rest of the hike. Only issue is that it also became dreadfully buggy. We did count our blessings, acklowedging that we had been relatively bug-free all day, but we had to pick up the pace to stay alive! We crossed a neat area that looked like gravel roads or dry drainages and then arrived at the edge of Basin Pond in a marshy area we could see from the high viewpoint just an hour ago!

There were lovely tree views to the pond and West Royce's cliffs, but we truly could not stop without being attacked by bugs - I got bit on my cheek. The Basin Trail turns up and away from the pond briefly before nearing the shore for some wonderful, buggy views. I found the bugs weren't as bad if I kept moving and waved my poles around like a crazy person, so I did!

We eventually saw our fourth and final frog of the day as we neared a campground area (and someone with a leaf blower). I had two more bug bites on my leg and arm, and we were basically running as we offically exited the woods! I took a couple photos of the boat ramp to Basin Pond, and we quickly got in Gen's car!

[3:12pm - End of Hike]

We drove back to get my car, did a quick change, and enjoyed our victory! We officially had 4 frogs vs. 1 person, which was a huge win! Our plan for the rest of the day was to find the Old Man of the Valley rock in Shelburne, visit the Glen Ellis Falls, and then get Taco Bell before watching some cable TV in our hotel.

The drive along ME-113 toward Shelburne was just lovely. We pulled off at Conner Rd. in Shelburne and walked toward Gorham along US-2 to a footpath just before the guardrail to find the rock we were looking for on the NH Rocks that Rock list - it really did look like an old man!

We continued on US-2 to NH-16 into Pinkham Notch, and eventually landed back at the Glen Ellis parking area...

Step-by-Step

- Drop car at Basin Pond.

- Park at East Royce Trailhead.

- Start hike on East Royce Trail.

- At summit of East Royce, turn around.

- At jct., turn right onto Royce Connector.

- At terminus, turn right onto Royce Trail.

- At summit of West Royce, continue onto Basin Rim Trail.

- At Rim Junction, continue for 0.1 miles to view, then retrace steps.

- Back at Rim Junction, turn right onto Basin Trail.

- At jct., turn right onto Hermit Falls Loop.

- At terminus, turn right onto Basin Trail.

- Return to car.

Photo Album