My Hike From Mt. Cardigan to Smarts Mountain

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AlpineBee

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Jun 13, 2013
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Location
Grafton County, NH
Hi there!

I've spent a few years researching a hiking route between Mt. Cardigan and Smarts Mountain. At one time, a trail existed between these two peaks, as part of an effort to connect Mt. Monadnock with Mt. Moosilauke.

A few weeks ago I executed my plan to hike between Cardigan and Smarts, using hiking trails and roads available to the public. I found the trip quite enjoyable, and similar to the Monadnock-Sunapee Trail.

I wrote a trip report and wanted to share it. My hope in performing this hike was to start discussions, get feedback, and potentially improve upon the route.

http://alpinebee.blogspot.com/2014/05/hiking-from-cardigan-mountain-to-smarts.html

Thanks!
Dennis
 
Wicked cool.

The old Maskoma Trail from Cummins Pond to Smarts is still in good shape, and is even signed from the summit. A little harder to find from the bottom, but a great alternate way up (or down) and it opens up more loop options.

I was able to follow Green roads pretty much following what I think was the original trail as far as Lary Pond, without violating any private property as far as I know; but beyond there I was lost!

I hope to be able o give your route a shot one of these weekends. Did you,so,the whole route in a day?

Thanks for a great report and for rekindling my interest...
 
That's awesome you were able to follow the trail. I found the area around cummins pond beautiful but very difficult to access for exploration. That's the nice part of it, though! I didn't know that the old trail is still signed from the summit. Does the sign say "Smarts No. 3" or "Maskoma Trail"? Once you reach the base of the trail where can you go from there? Yeah, I was able to end to end the hike in a day.
 
The route you're referring to from Cummings Pond is signed near the Smarts summit as the former Clark Pond Loop trail. I have a pic of the sign somewhere from a few years ago.
 
Awesome, Alpinebee, thanks for sharing this. I'd love to see the New England National Scenic Trail, which currently starts at the Long Island Sound in Connecticut and ends at Monadnock's summit, extend to the Canadian Border. Your explorations and findings tend to support that notion. My thought had been for it to run somewhat more easterly and run up the Davis Path to Washington and northward through the Pilots and Pliny's, but maybe a CT River Valley course would be fun instead. The Green Woodlands sound beautiful!
 
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The route you're referring to from Cummings Pond is signed near the Smarts summit as the former Clark Pond Loop trail. I have a pic of the sign somewhere from a few years ago.

When we went up the J trail last April there was still a orange (DOC?) sign for the trail.
 
I've read about the NE National Scenic Trail, and I would love to see it happen. I wonder if a way to make long paths like these into a reality is to get something, anything, established and then improve upon it.
 
>The Maskoma Trail was 20 miles long,
>followed today's Province Road in
>Dorchester, NH, and crossed numerous farms
>West of today's NH-118.

The 1948 AMC White Mtn Guide shows a route that does not go up to
Province Road but rather goes NW past Derby Pond (where there was a
shelter built ~1940), unfortunately the map and text disagree about the
next section where the map shows the trail climbing the ridge to the W
while the text has it passing Bryant Pond before climbing Kimball Peak
(sic)

I followed that general route last year, bushwhacking around a section of
posted road

>The last section of the
>Maskoma Trail was abandoned in 1993, called Smarts Trail No. 3, which
>ascended Smarts Mountain from Cummins Pond.

The original trail went by the pond and was used by snowmobiles and ATVs
to service the Smarts Mtn repeater which I think has been removed, NPS
purchase of the AT corridor may prevent such use today

The last time I hiked it, the first section had been relocated to start a
little farther W to avoid the pond shore

> I walked along Cummins Pond Road until it dead ended at a
>gate that looked private. I wasn't chancing it. ...
> it was very important to me to follow the rules, even if I
>was uncertain.

In the '70s I drove through in an ordinary sedan, obviously time and
beavers have made that impossible. I believe it is still a Class 6 road,
you could call the town and ask

The trail description said it went over Thompson Hill with good views from open fields, but it was already covered with trees and the path long gone when I bushwhacked it in the '80s. The guidebook said the trail left now-118 at an old school (which is maybe half a mile S of Province Road) so I took the road NW there as far as a gate where I talked to an elderly resident. He said that I could park there and the snowmobile trails there could be followed to Cummins Pond, but lacking a wife to pick me up I declined his offer.

>As I learned when hiking the Monadnock-Sunapee Trail, massive tracts
>of wilderness do exist in the West part of the State.

There is a Nature Conservancy map that shows plans to acquire conservation easements that would provide 2 corridors from 118 to the Mascoma Headwaters, one where I was looking and one farther S in Canaan. The Green Forest area isn't shown perhaps because it doesn't have an official easement. They requested schemes to build trails hold off until they actually buy the land, and the most famous local trail maintainer is negative bexause he already has too much trail mileage to maintain.

Many of the people involved in the Quabbin-to-Cardigan Initiative expect a trail will be built on to the A.T. somewhere, which would allow you to walk from Mass to Canada on hiking trails not roads - which hundreds of people do every year in VT!
 
Hi RoySwkr! Fantastic detail and thanks for sharing the bushwhacking adventures! Some of my information comes from research on the internet, so thanks for the corrections. Yeah, more information would have helped make my trek more direct. It's hard to imagine a road called Cummins Pond Rd wouldn't have led to Cummins Pond, so I'll bet you're right that one of the directions the road took was public. I agree with you. I feel like a critical mass is happening with a western NH long path - like with Q2C - and Cardigan is a key.
 
Nice report. I live in Canaan so I'm very familiar with the area you were in. I was also thinking that staying on the ridge over Kimball Hill would be nice alternative to circling around on Province Rd. There are a couple snowmobile trail options. FWIW, we were able to drive a jeep all the way through from Cummings Pond to 118 about 5 years ago without passing through a gate or posted areas. Since all other roads/trails were gated or signed I assume this was the old class VI road which is actually owned by the town. I don't speak much of this as it it clear that Green Woodlands discourages it's use. A formal trail connecting Cardigan and Smarts would be nice.
 
I have been wondering for some time about hiking Smarts Mountain from the east side. Your trip report inspired me to read up on Green Woodlands and study my maps to try to find the Clark Loop Trail. I entered Green Woodlands via a gated road that heads west off of North Dorchester Road. It took me up and over a hill and descended to valley located north of Cummins Pond. I turned right on logging road that headed up the drainage of Clough Brook. I made a dumb mistake which included actually crossing the Clark Trail. I ended up whacking most of the way along left hand side Clough Brook. Clark Trail is on right hand side of Clough Brook most of the way. I caught the trail again up near the 2400' and then followed it all way to the AT. I descended via the Clark Trail back to the logging road. The place where trail leaves log landing is not obvious. It leaves landing on left hand side and is not obvious. Not that anyone is trying to hide it. It's just not real obvious. My mistake was following the obvious trail. Trail is in pretty good shape. I observed saw cuts on blow downs although saw cuts all looked pretty old like no one has cleared blow downs in long time. Despite this there weren't many blow downs to contend with. Round trip mileage was 12.5 miles. It includes some wrong turns and side trip to summit which didn't add much value to the hike.
 
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