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I had already done several hikes in the Mahoosucs: to Gentian Pond (to see my kids' trailwork), to Mt. Success (to see the downed plane), to Old Speck (to go through Mahoosuc Notch). But I had never done this one. Peter Wyatt and I went up the Carlo Col Trail from Success Road. The trail is beautifully built, with a steady grade and some impressive construction (left), and we went through the climb in no time. Just below the Col we visited the Carlo Col campsite, which in addition to tent platforms has a shelter in good condition (right), really nice and clean inside (below left). The skylights were a nice touch.

We got to Carlo Col and turned right to scramble up to a nice outlook. It was a scramble all right (right). and reminded me a bit of Mahoosuc Notch (except that there the scramble lasted for a mile). The outlook at the top had great views toward the north country of New Hampshire and Maine (below left).

We then returned to Carlo Col and climbed to Mt. Carlo. It had nice standing views (right, looking south) but we knew there would be better views further ahead so we didn't linger and headed on to Goose Eye along the Mahoosuc ridge.

Soon after we crossed a subalpine meadow (left) with great views toward Goose Eye (right).

Climbing toward Goose Eye was mostly on open ledge and the wind was whipping. We stopped midway to enjoy the views west toward the Presidentials (left) and to the north (right).

The final ascent to Goose Eye involved iron rungs bolted into the rock (left) and a big ladder (right).

Getting to the Goose Eye ridge, the standard loop just goes left over the main peak and back down to the Carlo Col trailhead. Instead we turned right to continue on to East Goose Eye (left), which has great all-around views (right).

From East Goose Eye we could see the continuing Mahoosuc ridge to North Goose Eye, with beautiful alpine meadows in between (left). We continued on. The descent from East Goose Eye involved a spectacular assemblage of bridges and ladders, with elaborate construction such as ridges to prevent slipping (right).

After the descrent, the trail to North Goose Eye was through a succesion of meadows (left and right) with quite a bit of mud and muck but assistance from bog bridges and ledgy terrain.

We got to North Goose Eye and from there we could see the Mahoosuc Notch gap and Old Speck (left). We turned around and headed back (right, with East Goose Eye to the left and the main peak to the right).

The main Goose Eye peak is mightily advertised for its 360 degrees view and it did not disappoint (left and right, with Success Pond in the background). But we had had views like this all day.

From there we headed down Goose Eye Trail, which was pretty rough and mucky in its upper part (nothing like the Carlo Col Trail). At about 2.500 feet the grade got much nicer as we entered into the birch forest with its new lime-green leaves and from there it was down back to the Carlo Col Trail and to the car.