Starting at the Puzzle Mountain trailhead, I worked my way counterclockwise around the loop to get the longer east side done first. Saw no people until the Baldpates, where the Appalachian trail meets. Made quick work down to route 26 and crawled up to Old Speck. The climb up to Old Speck felt like it took forever. After Old Speck, it was the theme of seeing no people for the rest of the day. The summit of Sunday River Whitecap was absolutely stunning and I couldn't believe there was not a soul in sight. From there I knew it was fairly easy miles back down to where I started. The last couple little mountain climbs got me a bit, though. They are quite sneaky! Finally, I reached route 26 again and really pushed the last little section of road to get back to the Puzzle Mountain trailhead.
This route has a ton of potential, however, it is in desperate need of some trail work. The AT sections were fine, but elsewhere there was lots of overgrowth and blowdowns. I counted approximately 60 blowdowns on the east side. The overgrowth is so bad in sections you have to take great care to make sure you are on the trail as it's hard to follow. I used Gaia maps several times to help navigate.
The remoteness of this trail is quite lovely and there was some parts that weren't completely overtaken by the forest that were very fun to run on. I think your more likely to run into a moose out there than a human.
Water sources are not plentiful along the loop. The only ones I found were on the east side, so I had made sure to filter enough water to get me through the west side as well.
After an unsuccessful attempt a couple weeks ago, it was awesome to get some sweet redemption on this route.