dms
Active member
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
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