Sachem Peak

dms · May 30, 2006

On Sunday, my friend Doug R. and I decided to return to a peak we had first visited over 10 years ago, Sachem Peak in the Sandwich Wilderness area. This "small" mountain of about 2800' has a wide open ridge at the summit and some really nice cliffs on the south and north sides. We used the Smart's Brook Trail as an approach for about 4.5 mi, then we followed the Jennings / Sachem ridge to the summit. Smart's Brook Trail is a wonderful hiking trail, a mix of hardwoods, conifers, huge boulders and, of course, the brook itself. The trail was very favorabily reviewed a few years ago in Backpacker magazine. This was my second hike on it, and it is really one of the nicer trails in the Whites. The bushwack was through a mature stick forest on the ridge, and then some nice boulder scrambling to get to the summit itself. The summit is wide open with views in all directions, the views to the east and south are of Jennings Peak, Black Mountain, and Sandwich Dome. But the views to the northeast, and northwest are spectacular. The ridge itself is known as Acteon Ridge and ends at a 2300' bump called Bald Knob. There are nice stretches of ridge walking, some open woods and some not so open woods. All in all, it's a special place. We did not see any other hikers on the way in or out. We did see quite a few folks on Jennings Peak however. One bit of a rant. It seems that some rock climbers have discovered the south cliffs, and they have fixed some permanent anchors at the top of the cliff face and cut a couple of trails around the cliffs, since this is a Wildereness area, I don't believe that these "improvements" are allowed. Pics are at http://community.webshots.com/album/550900231iiAXQa

dr_wu002 · May 30, 2006

Nice! I've wanted to get out there for a little while now. Smarts Brook Trail? Sounds like a plan. Where's Barbarossa?

This is the correct picture link btw: http://community.webshots.com/album/550900231iiAXQa

-Dr. Wu

dms · May 30, 2006

Thanks for the correct pic link, my computer skills are shall we say not the best! Barb is among the missing! If you want to go out to Sachem Peak let me know, cuz I am bringing a wrench to clean up those anchors!

jessbee · May 30, 2006

dr_wu002 said:
Nice! I've wanted to get out there for a little while now. Smarts Brook Trail? Sounds like a plan. Where's Barbarossa?

-Dr. Wu

Hey is that the peak we were checking out from Jennings? I'd be down for this hike.

audrey · May 30, 2006

Isn't that a beauty?!
We've done that ridgewalk a few times, starting on the Yellow Jacket trail and going up Bald Knob, where there are some fun scrambles. Next time I'd like to try for Jennings as well, but it looks steeper in real life than it does on the map.

RoySwkr · May 30, 2006

I can see why dms is unspecific about the elevation, note the 2784 spot elevation inside a 2840' contour.

I climbed this in winter from Rte.49 back when it was still on the 3000-footer list from 15' quads.

dms · May 30, 2006

jessbee, that is the peak you can see from Jennings. Audrey, it is MUCH steeper in real life than from what the map looks like! Roy, I think that the maps are all over the place on this peak. The Wonalancet map shows the summit to be at the western end of the ridge when clearly the summit is on the eastern end. I am doing all the "former" 3ks anyway!