It's important to have a good map , and a good trail description can be very helpful too.
But the AMC White Mountain Guide is too heavy to pack ... so I thought I'd just take a picture of the Greenleaf Trail description as I packed for a trip up Mt Lafayette.
Gallery / slide show
But ... Mt Lafayette is not anywhere near Rowe and Gunstock in the Belknaps! You say?
Oh! That's right ... well, when I got up and thought about getting back in time to feed the cats I realized Lafayette was probably not a smart choice 
A nice Belknap loop would give me plenty of time, though ....
I had a small section of the Ridge Trail I wanted to complete, so I thought a loop up Rowe and down Gunstock via the Brook trail would be good.
After watching a woman park a giant car from the past ( what was that thing? All sharp angles and a flat body , an old Lincoln or Cadillac or something ... looked like it should be a hovercraft ) in the Gunstock parking lot, I headed up Mt Rowe via the cell tower rd.
Been there before, but for some reason the tower really just amazed me today, stood there just looking at it, thinking about the structure and the forces ... and looking at the little pegs that presumably are for acrobats to climb the tower on 
!
Onward to the very nice (but too short!) open ridge of Rowe,
then had a bit of a dilemma - the original hike I'd planned was really shorter than I wanted. A-n-d here I was at a junction of trails that I hadn't hiked but wanted to , a-n-d my map ( Dave Roberts map - finally let me down 
) did not have the Weeks or Mt Rowe trails ... hmmm, desire and adventure vs The Unknown .... down the link to the Weeks trail I went 
The signage was good at each junction from that point on, with usually some description. I thought I'd pop out on Belknap Mt rd and then walk to Gilford Elementary school and pick up the Mt Rowe Trail; I was a little concerned that the sight of a big funny looking guy carrying something (hiking poles) would cause mass panic at the school, but decided this was NH and common sense would prevail.
The Weeks trail turned out to be longer than expected, and a pleasant enough walk in the woods but with very little of note. I did notice one area that was odd, a sort of rock field, like a stream bed overflow with softball - soccer ball sized rocks everywhere. What made it odd was the extent of the field, and the lack of an obvious nearby brook.
The Weeks Trail eventually coincided briefly with the Mt Rowe trail; The Mt Rowe Trail runs from the elementary school to Mt Rowe. The Weeks trail at this point diverged and continued SW ... I found the intersection a little confusing but a sign here was very helpful and I decided to continue down the Weeks Trail; it eventually rejoined the Mt Rowe Trail further downhill near the elementary school. Confused? Check out the Belknap Range Trail map
So after reaching the Mt Rowe Trail I thought I might as well go see what the trailhead access looked like. I'm glad I did that , the trailhead is off to one side of the elementary school so for future reference it looks easily accessible. It is also pretty cool - it is in a conservation area, with a 150 ft boardwalk across a bog that is nearly completely converted to meadow.
Along the trail in this area were several drawings and photos of drawings of insects; obviously the teachers are taking advantage of the proximity of the nature area 
So at this point I turned back toward Mt Rowe and headed up the trail. I reached an intersection with the Yellow trail and decided to take it. That was fun - it was quite steep for a short section, then became less so. The treadway became a bit tunnel like in one section of softwood, and as a whole the trail was rougher than the Weeks or Mt Rowe trails, but no problem at all.
Eventually I reached an intersection with what looked like a carriage rd. Perhaps part of the "Old Weeks Road" ? This was the one place where signage was absent ... but since I knew I was ascending , the choice of direction was obvious and I soon hit the Mt Rowe Trail's blue blazes again. No problem.
From here it was down the North Spur again to the Weeks trail, but this time turning left and going up the mountain back to the Ridge trail.
Now it became a question of following the Ridge Trail, which was fun for a while but began to become tedious - somehow I'd gotten it in my head that this section would only be .5 mile. Wrong....
So the Ridge trail climbed longer than I expected, then started to skirt below the summit of gunstock with some very tantalizing almost-views-that-shoulda-been-views ... grrr. There was finally one (restricted) view to the west ...
and then not too long after that I popped out on the summit and had a nice sit-down on the deck of the Panorama Pub.
Eventually I ran out of food and the pub was closed ... so there was nothing left to do but head down the Brook Trail. This too turned out to be longer than expected, but it was a pleasant enough path. It did have one unexpected bonus, it passes thru some very nice open glades. No views, but the openness was very nice and the afternoon sunlight streaming across the ferns was very pretty
So I started out thinking I was going to Lafayette, then changed my mind to a Rowe-Gunstock loop, then wound up doing a figure 8 loop up Rowe, down Rowe, up Rowe again, up Gunstock and finally down Gunstock. Sometimes I just can't make up my mind
And ... I did get to see Lafayette, even if from a distance 