This week, all things Smarts Mountain and Mount Cube!
[00:00:08] Here is the latest Higher Summits forecast brought to you by our friends at the Mount Washington Observatory. Weather above treeline in the White Mountains is often wildly different than at our trailheads. Before you hike, check the Higher Summits forecast at mountwashington.org.
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[00:00:51] You should too. Go to mountwashington.org or text FORECAST to 603-356-2137. Hello listeners! Nick here with your forecast for the weekend of September 12, 2026. Friday, in and out of the clouds early trending towards in the clear under mostly sunny skies.
[00:01:21] High around 40. Wind northwest at 50-70 mph with gusts up to 80 mph early, 40-55 mph with gusts up to 65 mph midday, and 45-60 mph with gusts up to 70 mph later. Wind chill rising to 20-30 above. Friday night, in the clear under mostly clear skies. Low steady around 40 through midnight, then rising to the mid 40s by daybreak. Wind northwest at 45-60 mph with gusts up to 70 mph early,
[00:01:49] 25-40 mph with gusts up to 50 mph midnight, and 10-25 mph later. Wind chill 20-30 above rising to 30-40 above. Wind. Wind blue. Wind. Wind. Wind.
[00:02:18] up there this weekend but looking pretty nice overall lots of events out there this weekend
[00:02:22] happy hiking stay safe have fun girl crush some peaks from the woodpecker studio in the great
[00:03:03] state of new hampshire welcome to the sounds like a search and rescue podcasts so you want a video series where we share post-hike reflections challenges lessons learned and essential insights
[00:03:20] to prepare you for your next adventure in the white mountains let's get started okay nick so um so
[00:04:22] you want to hike smarts mountain and mount cube are you ready to go i'm excited mike let's do it i was trying to do some research on like the naming conventions to figure out like why some mountains in the white so there's no consistency in the white mountains it's like um some some of the mountains are like obviously like mount adams mount washington mount mount
[00:04:44] um madison or whatever and then there's these like smarts mountain or um cannon mountain wildcat mountain so i was trying to do some research and they said that like there is an old english language tendency behind it where typically mount plus name became especially common when distinct when the distinguishing word was a proper name like mount washington mount jefferson mount madison
[00:05:08] and then name plus mountain was common when locals thought of the whole land form or ridge as the um as the overall mountain that's why you have like the sandwich range you know or the uh the kinsman so the the typically those the mountains that have that name plus mountain like smarts mountain what we're going to talk about that's a bigger land form that the locals would call it versus just an individual
[00:05:36] mountain but i guess it just got inconsistent over the years so that that's the best explanation that i can give if that makes sense so mount always has a proper name behind it but then the ones that have a mountain at the end typically are like a bigger land mass or just historically the locals referred to the land mass versus just an individual mountain and then it morphed over time and and now we know and now we know it is one of those weird ones i think uh i had the same sort of thoughts at least
[00:06:05] the mount versus mountain kind of thing running across my mind i think because you see smarts mountain and then mount cube back to back i'm like is it cube mountain or is it mount cube mount cube like i feel like just seeing the two back to back i like almost second guess myself right exactly that makes sense but anyway tonight we are going to talk about uh these two mountains and the reason we put them together is they're both 52 with a view uh hikes and they there's a fair bit of separation between the two of them so it's not like um super common that you do both
[00:06:32] together but uh it is a traverse across the appalachian trail section before you get to sort of what's considered the main white mountains once you enter mount musalock so we just figured we'd we'd lump these two together because nick has recently done a hike on them and i've done a previous traverse so we're getting a two for one on this one but just warning people that like these are not you can definitely do these together but like uh it's a bit of a distance so yes it's not a conventional out and back or like a loop or something like that if you're
[00:06:59] gonna do them you're gonna have a long day a traverse is definitely reasonable um but yeah to your point it's not like welch dickey or like the double heads or i don't know some other common ones that people do near each other that like chakura and middle sister like they're these have some distance between them so they're not like right next to each other or by any means right yeah i think the full traverse is like 16 miles or something so it's yeah it's a it's a it's a haul yep anyway so where do we start here um mr nick do you want to give an introduction to
[00:07:29] uh um to the audience a high level summary of smarts and cube sure i'm also i'm gonna say i'm impressed mike because i i feel like you're gonna say smarts at some point instead of smarts but you're smarts you're really holding it together with the smarts i am i appreciate it nick i'm uh thank you for the reminder you're welcome so smarts mountain um stands at 32 000 3 238 feet
[00:07:55] it is the highest and largest of the metal middle connecticut river valley mountains a chain of peaks running northeast to southwest in western new hampshire so technically outside the white mountains as mike mentioned it's uh it's right before if you're heading on the at before you hit the white mountains proper um the at runs over the high point the western summit knob it is uh it's heavily wooded that western summit knob but it does have an old 40 foot fire tower which gives you panoramic views
[00:08:20] and uh this is also the destination of the 52 of the view list if you're trying to hike that list make sure you hit this part of it with the fire tower for northbound at hikers smarts is the first peak they encounter over 3 000 feet new hampshire um the origin of the peaks name is a little unclear but our good friend moses sweetser's guidebook in 1876 includes the name for the peak and it was once known as muscoma mountain um probably for the nearby muscoma lake and muscoma river
[00:08:50] there was also a muscoma trail dating back to 1937 that connected smarts with cardigan to its southeast but this was abandoned some point in the late 20th century due to lack of use thought that was kind of interesting um lambert ridge of the lambert ridge trail is named in honor of a family who settled in lyme new hampshire during the 19th century and the southern trail connects to dartmouth skiway um and i think we'll do you want to dive into that now mike or do you want to go into later what
[00:09:17] are you thinking with the history yeah so i think i can just do a quick overview of dartmouth skiway so um for anybody that's hiking in this area so to the very south um along the appalachian trail um hikers will enter the dartmouth skiway and it's probably i don't know maybe about a quarter mile half a mile south of the lambert ridge trailhead entrance but a lot of people will park here um and and start their hike if they're doing like a traverse or an out and back
[00:09:43] um and the skiway is interesting you don't hear much about it but it is a um it's a dartmouth college owned ski hill but it is open to the public so anybody can buy a lift ticket or a season pass and ski there um dartmouth affiliation does give you some discounted um pricing and programming and i think there's some other like dartmouth hitchcock medical and whatnot you can get a discount but essentially this um it's got a long history here dartmouth skiing history is is older than the
[00:10:10] skiway itself i think that the first collegiate ski team that dartmouth fielded was in 1909 but by the 1950s dartmouth had decided that they wanted to pursue their own alpine facility so by the mid-1950s there was an alumnus named john meck that submitted a report to the trustees uh supporting dartmouth's um proposal or supporting a proposal for dartmouth to open their own ski resort
[00:10:36] given their history so they identified this site called holtz ledge in lime new hampshire which is roughly 14 miles north of hanover so it's not exactly right near the campus and by spring of 1956 locals helped clear the mountain over the summer uh period so they organized in the spring they did they did the clearing in the summer and then they they announced their first manager and then they put in a
[00:11:04] 3,800 foot ski lift and skiing began in december of 1956 so basically only about a year and a half nick after they decided uh on the location they had they had it open and then over time they added a t-bar um in the 1960s they put snow making systems in the 1980s they expanded in the 1980s and added more lifts
[00:11:28] and uh in 2000 they built sort of the premier uh part of the ski way which is a 17 000 square foot mclean family lodge and then um they modernized with a double chairlift in 2005 so it is uh it's it's it's not a huge ski resort it's about a thousand feet vertical uh but it is known for um ski racing so there is good
[00:11:53] racing courses there and it's it's um dartmouth has a really big history over 100 all americans and more than 30 national champs and dozens of race racers that have competed in the olympics so it's a legit um ski hill that a lot of advanced racers have gone on um and and you know gone on to like international competition so uh it does also offer uphill access so if you want to skin or get used to backcountry
[00:12:19] skiing it's a good good uh option for people to go and uh practice in that area and more of a safe environment so um yeah it's worth it check it out dartmouth ski way people don't think about it as much nick but it is a cool little hill i've been over there a couple times oh really yeah i was curious i was curious how i didn't actually realize it was a pseudo like resort not resort i guess but just the ski area like at all i kind of figured it was just like i don't know like one downhill track but this
[00:12:46] is actually cool it looks like kind of watch use it but way less developed in terms of size and drop and things and i imagine too if it's got more legit racing courses it's the terrain seems to be catered more towards intermediate expert which makes sense if they're training all american racers there yeah i think they have it let me just see i think i put the notes in it yeah 25 beginner 50 intermediate and 25 expert the longest run is above over a mile uh so it's an old school new
[00:13:12] hampshire feel uh to it and uh no village no condos no gondola no 28 hamburgers uh over there uh into the lodge so it's a little bit of a rustic throwback type of place to go to yeah maybe i'll have to check it out sometime it seemed like you could do like maybe like hike cube or smarts or something then hit like twilight there or something and ski right like that could be a fun day yeah exactly so anyway that that's definitely worth checking out and then like i said a lot of
[00:13:40] people will park in that area when they're uh when they're doing a traverse or um if you want to meet somebody on the at or something like that but but that's yeah that's that's all there is as far as an overview for smarts mountain and then what about mount cube nick sure so mount cube and more specifically the south peak is uh what you're looking to get up to um if you're going after the 52 of the view list um that stands at 29 16 feet and um again the the south peak is sort of the main destination where a
[00:14:08] bunch of trails converge um i don't know what your opinion is on this mic too um but i think the cube that cubes north peak actually has sort of the main beautiful view that you see there with moose lock and everything yeah absolutely i think that um yeah the north the north summit is the um the highlight for sure lots lots of ledges to explore there yeah um not that it's bad by any means on the south peak and the main destination of the list but i think the north peak kind of just blows it away
[00:14:35] again with those ledges and stuff so the north peak is about 28 90 feet um again just slightly north of where south peak is they're not really too far apart um but uh yeah they're both really impressive um so this is also located in middle connecticut river mountains over in western new hampshire right near cube or sorry excuse me right near smarts um it lies along the appalachian trail um the at crosses south peak directly um and it's also the eastern terminus of the cross rivendale trail which stretches 36 miles
[00:15:05] westward to flagpole hill in vershire vermont so i actually wasn't aware that that's the terminus of like a sort of long trail that goes into vermont either i just assumed either yeah i assumed it was just sort of the whatever trail that went up to cuban that was it so that's kind of cool um the name is derived from a local legend regarding a hunting dog named cuba who was attacked by a bear on the mountain in the 19th century cuba was also given to the name of a waterfall that was once accessible by
[00:15:31] trail along becket brook on the northeast side of the mountain maybe that'd be a fun bushwhack to try to find one day um however there's also a different tale that attributes the name to a west indy sailor living in the area named cuba um cuba is in the caribbean islands um in the 1932 dartmouth outing club handbook mentions the name and use as early as 1805 for the peak and um i don't think we've mentioned yet but going with the dartmouth theme i believe all the trails on these two mountains
[00:15:57] or most of them are maintained by the dartmouth outing club as well correct yeah you have the orange um trail signs which is the indicator there yeah um most people probably familiar with that big orange trail sign and the orange trail signs you see over on moose lock they do all the trails over there as well so next um we'll get into views the views are going to be similar a little bit between the two of these um and might kind of do you want to do you want to explain to people maybe what
[00:16:24] the top of smarts is kind of like and what you'll see when you get to that summit with the fire tower and stuff right yeah so i guess smart so one thing i will say is that before you get to the summit um especially if you're hiking in the fall like there's actually really good um foliage views from the south if you're coming up um if you're coming up sorry um via the um oh my gosh i lambert lambert ridge up uh the at section then um there's a lower ledge that gives a nice outlook
[00:16:54] into a little valley and i remember i've got some pictures there with me and tom did it and like it's really like you're immersed in the foliage so it's a good little view uh before you get to the summit and then the summit of um smarts mountain is like there's a lot going on up there there's a first of all there's a privy with no like um there's nothing surrounding it right it's just sitting out there and then platform of the hole right yeah it's that was my recollection
[00:17:21] and then from there you also have um a fire tower which is probably like it's pretty i remember being tall and narrow you probably have a closer memory of it nick yeah than i do um but you get up there and it does give you some views what the problem is is they they need a window cleaner nick to clean the windows of the fire tower you have to sort of crack the fire tower windows open to get a view so it's not it's fine but it could be a lot nicer if they clean the windows yeah for sure i i called
[00:17:50] that out having just been up there with dave and liz uh like a month or so ago but yeah like you sent the best views probably from come from the spots where it's missing panes of glass um these are just kind of fogged and whatever um but through the glass there are there is a nice panorama um so directly north um and close by probably closest to anything in front of you at that point you have mount cube right in front of you um and as you're kind of looking out right moving sort of i guess to
[00:18:16] northeast east um you can see moosalock and then you can see mount washington if it's super clear and then you have views of car sandwich dome stinson um moving further east you can see the squams the bell naps um and eventually moving right cardigan karsage to the southeast south and southwest you have a bunch of vermont peaks including a scutney stratton killington and pico um which is kind of cool because that's where the at is sort of moving through so if you're hiking the at like dave could see back on the peaks that he had been over um and then as you move to the west you can
[00:18:45] see the monroe skyline um vermont 4 000 footers abraham and ellen over there then you got camel sump and mount mansfield with the chin and then uh you got to look straight up to vermont's northeast kingdom from on there but as mike said it is a little tough with those windows like genuinely like they need a window cleaner um it'd be a lot better if you could see clearly um as mike mentioned too you have that great outlook at the lambert ridge trail um where you can see smarts uh itself behind you
[00:19:12] the former summit and then uh you can see cardigan to the southeast with fire screw and karsage and apparently there's also a very similar outlook on the smarts mountain tent site which i actually haven't checked out yet um yeah i don't think i went over there so there's a in addition to the fire tower there's a um it used to be the fire warden's cabin which is now maintained by dartmouth outing club and then there's three tent sites that are available so the cabin fits eight first come
[00:19:39] first serve i'm assuming at through hikers probably take make use of that quite a bit um there is according to the forest service there is um a water um source via the the daniel doan trail uh at a it's sometimes it's not not super reliable but it's called mike murphy spring so um you can you can take your chances there but i would bring water with me i wouldn't i wouldn't risk it up there but
[00:20:04] um yeah there is the cabin i did poke my head in there i mean it looks looks okay and then the the tent site i'm not a big like cabin person on the on these mountains nick myself i would probably hang out at the tent site or try to find a hammock location but it you know there's a lot going on on smarts summit yeah i'd rate the uh the cabin as maybe like a six out of ten spooky vibe it's not like a nine out of ten like the one on cabin is uh but it's it's nice if you if you need it then you
[00:20:33] can use it um and one other thing i want to call out is that the door that's up to said fire tower on smarts um it's pretty heavy i don't know if it's the latch or it's actually the weight of the door it almost feels like it's not supposed to open when you push on it but i promise you it does open unless you're in winter and it's frozen shut and you really can't open it um and just be careful when you're opening and closing it because it's pretty heavy um imagine if you got your fingers or something caught in there or on a friend coming up behind you it could be not
[00:21:01] fantastic um and liz i think noticed this when me and dave were going up but also if you slam it shut it makes like the rest of the tower shake because it's an old tower from the 50s um so uh if you're not into fire towers a ton kind of like i feel like my phobia has gotten less over the years of climbing these old rickety fire towers but just be aware that if someone's in front of you and they slam the tower door like the tower's not collapsing it's just shaking because someone slammed the door when they're going up to the cab of the fire tower yeah yeah i i prefer my fire my um fire towers wider
[00:21:30] i feel like this one's a little skinny and makes me a little nervous like i like the i like the fire tower on um is it belknap in the the mom yeah that's i feel like that that's a nice solid like you don't feel you're not going anywhere on that one but this one is a little it's a little narrow no i remember uh the the first time i did smarts with ash uh it was like a really windy morning and the tower like moving when gusts of wind were hitting it and i was like i don't know if i like
[00:21:57] this that much like i think i think i'm ready to go down now yeah but it does the job it's better than no views um so moving on to mount cube so the south peak uh again that main destination uh right to your south uh you got smarts mountain that giant mass uh and you can also see the eastman ledges um if you take the kodak trail up which we'll talk a little bit later it'll bring you over
[00:22:22] those ledges um then you got cardigan uh and then to the left of uh smarts and you got corsage to the right so the southern corsage um and then left of this grouping around smarts you can see tenny and plymouth mountain kind of north near that newfound lake area um then you can see the belknaps poking out over tenny's long ridge um to the right of smarts you can see moose mountain holtz ledge uh the dartmouth skiway then you can see a scutney in vermont and then very similar views um really from
[00:22:49] smarts there you can see stratton you also can see muesli and okimo uh killington pico and then kind of a full spread of the green mountains um because of where this vantage point is a little bit further north you actually can see all the way from stratton to the far left and jpeak to your far right so probably one of the better views of uh all those vermont 4 000 footers and sort of high peaks that you can get from anywhere in the whites yeah i also think that um one thing to keep in mind too is as you're looking out into vermont basically cube and smarts are pretty close to the connecticut
[00:23:19] river and i think the effect that the connecticut river has and there's a number of lakes as well i think that it keeps the temperature down in the morning and uh this this this range of mountains tends to be pretty good for undercast like i've i've gotten some like unbelievable um undercast um on on cube before so uh like literally like you're walking on clouds even though you're not that high in elevation the undercast is is insane in this area yeah i think your theory uh must be correct mike
[00:23:48] because you know what that reminded me of is when i did blueberry uh not blueberry black which isn't sort of the same area the black and the western whites over there um i'd done it with my dad early in the morning and we kind of surmised the same thing where it was like early kind of a september probably like almost like this time of year and it was like crazy undercast and you could see all that that that like basically uh steam i don't know clouds like you can see it all hanging in that valley line which is really neat they stick to the water sources because it's just colder so
[00:24:15] and i see that like even in main when i wake up in the morning like you'll see just localized clouds just stick into the pond so i think it's early morning you can hit an undercast for sure and um you can look right out into the um connecticut river section behind it or then even heading out towards like musalak there's enough lakes there that uh that you can usually get a good undercast yeah for sure i like your we'll go with localized clouds instead of steam or whatever i was trying
[00:24:42] to say say back there localized clouds i like that all right um then i i think the crown jewel of this whole if you're doing both of them or either of them the crown jewel view of this this whole area is the north peak of mount cube um so it's roomy quartzite ledges offer panorama over the baker river valley and out to the whites um look into your left on those ledges from where you poke out you can look up vermont's northeast kingdom and piermont mountain then you have the benton range next
[00:25:07] uh this includes black mountain and blueberry uh mountain 52 with a view and x52 with a view respectively then um as mike was just talking about you got musalak right over there to your northeast um beautiful beautiful view of musalak yeah i can't stress how nice it is i i'd want to get like up there in the fall when you can see the foliage maybe some like foliage and snow kind of going up um it'd be perfect um continuing on you can see blue ridge dropping off the right side of musalak and this was interesting and i didn't notice this the first time i was up there but i
[00:25:36] think liz maybe had one of those apps on your phone that lets you see which peaks are which or maybe it was dave but um you can actually see the hancocks kerrigan scar ridge osseola is across from you um and then tecumseh tri pyramids pretty much that sandwich range area with the sleepers and then white face so really like looking almost directly across from you just that vantage you're like kind of looking towards that central southern southeastern portion of the whites which is really neat um and then continuing right to that to your east you've got car mountain which is next 52 with a
[00:26:05] view and then stinson um which is currently a 52 of the view list and then you can see some peaks over in rumney along with belnaps and cardigan to your far right of those ledges so a really big expanse and i think it's one of those views too like you might not notice what you're looking at at first things where these view guides kind of come in um but it's kind of neat that you can see kerrigan the hancocks and all this stuff like i did not realize that the first time we're up there that you're looking at the whites from that vantage point yeah yeah it's it is a um it's a great range and i
[00:26:34] think that especially in the fall i recommend people check this out because it there's a couple things one is like people sleep on it so they don't you know a lot of the people that would normally just go to sort of the main 4 000 footers and the franconia ridge crowd then they have no clue about this that these these mountain ranges exist and then the foliage is amazing like i said you get that undercast as well and then you also have all the at through hikers that you would normally get
[00:26:59] traffic from that's all gone by the by the time foliage hits so it's a perfect place to go in the fall and the roads around there too are like great driving as well yeah it's definitely uh some sleeper peaks if you're checking out foliage um and speaking of roads and sort of the location where these are maybe we should have mentioned this earlier i'll have to move it up in future script templates but um cube is in orford new hampshire smarts is in lime and if you um look at them on a map it's almost
[00:27:25] like and you think of it as one giant chunk like where the at the at crosses both of these and it basically goes from sort of the dartmouth skiway dorchester road to the south and then you have nh 25 eight of the north of cube so that whole chunk of i guess forest and woods and mountains is really where you're hiking across and where these two mountains are located yeah um and as far as park and access for either of these continuing with our road theme um you can access smarts mountain um from a couple different trailheads the first one the main one that most people do it probably from
[00:27:55] is lambert ridge um that's the also the appalachian trail there's a small parking area for that as well as the ranger trails off dorchester road and lime which mike mentioned earlier the daniel doan trail which i did the first time i did this with ash is located off mosley brook road um which is in orford off quintown road uh parking is available on the left after a doc sign and make sure you don't pass park past this as its private property so be respectful of that the j trail which is the
[00:28:22] appalachian trail um coming off jacobs brook road is across from the kodak trail um that's actually the at kind of heading i guess depending which way you're going if you were heading up that trailhead from it you'd be heading southbound on the at up to smarts um you do need to access this by walking from it from the same parking area off quintown road as you would for accessing cube via the kodak trail um so they're literally directly across from each other um cube you can access
[00:28:48] that from baker road off new hampshire 25a and orford for the cross rivendale trail the cross rivendale trail i have not done but that is the recommended route from the 52 with a view guide yeah i haven't done that one either yeah it's supposed to be it said it's supposed to be really pleasant and i guess gets a little steep in its upper portion but it's supposed to be really nice um the mount cube trail or the appalachian trail um parking off new hampshire 25a there's a little pull off over there um one note on this one is that an early spring bracket brook crossing can run
[00:29:18] very high um and we had oh yeah that's right you you called us up and you guys had a hard time crossing i think i'd call this out in the guide and you edited it um yeah you want to talk about that mike yeah so when you so on uh 25a when you park first of all i feel like there's a fear there's a good amount of parking on the road it's just basically just pull over on the road so you i don't know how many cars could fit in there but it's a decent amount i don't think you can park on the other side there's like a private um something i feel like it's like a meeting place or something
[00:29:47] there but you can park on 25a um you do need to like sort of be aware early spring or in periods where there's a lot of rain this bracket brook crossing was very difficult for us we did it on march 28th so there was a decent amount of melt that we were dealing with and it was cold enough where we really didn't want to risk like following in and getting wet and hiking the rest of the day so um it took us like basically we were scouting up and down the mountain uh or up and down the the
[00:30:13] trail and the in the river for a while i think we went up a quarter mile down a quarter mile and then finally went back to where the trail crossing is and just went in um we did make it across but it was a little bit it was probably sketchy nick i would say if somebody fell in it wasn't going to be pretty so that's the make it through that's the first like big so i mean i hit it super low but that's like what do you hit it like a mile and or something like that yeah it's like maybe a mile mile and a half in yes i can see that drop down like about a hundred feet into the drainage and
[00:30:42] then back up yeah but i was gonna say i remember it goes up a little bit after but yeah i could definitely see that being a problem with snow melt that's a pretty wide like that's not i wouldn't that's more of a i would say probably must be more of a river in the spring than like a brook to me always seems to convey that it's like a small thing it was definitely a river and the the problem that we ran into and it might have just been an early spring you know sort of winter but the rocks were frozen so the water's running and then all the rocks had ice on them so to rock hop on that
[00:31:11] was a little nerve-wracking and you didn't want to fall in fully so i almost like was inclined to just go in step in but then you're up to your knees and wet and wet cold in cold conditions so it was a little bit difficult but we just we ended up rock hopping and it was okay but it was a little bit the other thing i didn't like about is if somebody fell it was going to be a big problem it was going to end our day yeah yeah that's that's not good all right and then uh the last option for
[00:31:40] cube which um the first time i did cube i did this out and back but the kodak trail so the appalachian trail um and that's again at that parking area at the end of jacobs brook road off quintown road so you need to park and kind of walk on the dirt road a little bit then you'll bang left and that's going up the kodak trail um so mike do you want to maybe go over some of the the different trail overviews and maybe some of the stats that people are sort of curious about this i know we already talked about one of them a little bit but yeah yeah so again for for for smarts i'll i'll full disclosure
[00:32:10] i basically i've done the lambert ridge trail which is essentially the appalachian trail and then the um you know down the the j trail but essentially like lambert ridge trail um if you do an out and back it's about 7.8 miles and about 2700 feet of elevation when you come in from the south it's it's sort of like you do this you do about a 13 or 1400 foot climb and then you get to a shelf you go down a
[00:32:36] little bit and then you climb up another probably i don't know thousand feet or so to the summit so it's a little bit of a it's a definitely hit you in the face right away steep climb and then it levels off and then you um yeah then you'll get to the um you know you'll get to the summit and it's you know it's not too bad um and then let me just see i'm pulling up my map nick just to reference
[00:33:01] this so i guess so all right then you've got the ranger trail so the ranger trail sort of like mirrors the lambert ridge trail and then um it's just a little bit south of it so it's it's very close um you've got the daniel doan trail which comes from the north and um that is off of mousley brook road that you can get to and then once you get past smart mountain summit the true summit that's
[00:33:30] another thing just to be aware of is that the cabin and the fire tower are not the true summit you've got to go up a little ways um but once you get to the true summit of smart mount smart mountain which is not my recollection is it's just a small rock here and there's not a view there um then it switches over to the j trail and then from the j trail you are going down towards mount cube and that's basically how you connect to the um eastman ledge and then eventually you'll get to hexacube
[00:33:59] shelter which we'll talk about in a moment so if you're doing the the traverse then you'll basically do you know lambert ridge to j trail which is all the appalachian trail and one thing i want to call out um if you are doing daniel doan trail granted we did this like two or three years ago um but the bottom of that is like i don't know if a microburst went through there or tornado or something but the bottom of that is an absolute mess like there's trees ripped up out of the ground um when ash and i had done it i was looking at gps on my watch or probably filming at the time
[00:34:28] more correctly um to get through there and the guide still calls out um the most recent addition that it's a little hard to follow down there so i'm imagining maybe it's better than it was a couple years ago um but something went through there and made a mess at one point so just pay attention if you are on the daniel doan trail in that lower section i think it was almost like right away um just a bunch of trees down and stuff um but other than that i don't really like to your point mike i kind of i think it does a sort of similar thing it looks like looking up that ridge like you're probably climbing a thousand feet and
[00:34:55] then maybe steady and then kind of just another shootout to the summit a little bit less elevation gain than if you're heading from the south but similar yeah vibes yeah it's a little shelf that that you hit for about half a mile or so which gives you a nice little break i appreciate it uh but i did just looking at my strava here so we we went from the skiway we we hit the appalachian trail there's a there's a approach trail called the skiway trail uh that is part of the appalachian trail so we did the approach and then um up lambert's ridge and then down j trail to
[00:35:24] hexacube shelter and that was 11.5 miles with 3 900 feet of elevation gain that i had so yeah solid day yep and then moving on to um mount cube so if you um so the cross rivendale trail which is the recommended trail of the 52 with a view uh book that is uh five miles and 1600 feet uh including
[00:35:51] the trip to the the north peak and um and then the kodak trail which is let me just get my my bearing here so the kodak trail is when you leave uh hexacube shelter and you head towards um mount cube from the south then um that that is a climb from like i said that that's basically the appalachian trail
[00:36:20] and it looks like that is um about 2100 foot climb uh and includes going over the eastman ledges so it actually the kodak trail starts before uh the hexacube trail and then you've got the mount cube trail which we talked about which is basically the northern um section of the appalachian trail from 25a for an out and back there that's 7.4 miles with 2300 feet of elevation gain so cross rivendale trail
[00:36:46] definitely is the uh the easier and shorter climb for um for mount cube yeah and um eastman ledges um little bit on those too it's like you pretty much have smarts you can see cardigan some other stuff but there are a bunch of nice rocky outcroppings that you kind of get right off the bat if you are hitting up the kodak trail after the first steep little climb so that's kind of nice um but uh unfortunately after that you are going to do like a down and up again sort of as you head down to hexacube and then back up to smart summit so if you are doing on back you're probably going to have like a couple hundred
[00:37:16] feet on the way back going back up to eastman ledges which is kind of a bummer but yeah that's what it is yeah and i would say too that um from a water source perspective if you're going from smarts to cube uh when you get to the low point there's a couple of brooks there's south branch jacobs brook and then north branch jacobs brook and those were both running when uh we were hiking in october so when i was out there so pretty i would assume that those are pretty reliable or at least one one of those branches is pretty reliable throughout the year
[00:37:46] yeah i believe um they were all running when we were out there in august as well and it's been which is like that's a better that's a better judge because it would be um a lot drier than yeah especially the one there's like a bridge you cross on the j trail before you hit um and that was running still so if it's running in august then you should be pretty good i would think most times a year yes um and then as mike was mentioned if you do want to combine these two i had just done these two with um liz
[00:38:12] and dave because dave was doing the at um if you're gonna knock both of them out we did a car spot traverse from dorchester road to new hampshire 25a um i clocked about 15 and a half miles and 4,500 feet of elevation gain um so it's a solid day um i i will say like i don't think it's not like a 4,500 foot day like a mount adams type day like it's more just kind of a lot of mileage with a lot of little up and downs um i i think it's not really that bad if especially if you're taking your time and you
[00:38:40] have a beautiful day with friends like i did um it went by pretty quick and it's a pretty manageable thing it is probably like a 25 ish minute ride um between those two locations though so it's not like it's just right around the corner to go get your car like if you're in franconia notch and doing the ridge or something like that um just something to be aware of very good um and then i want to talk about winter strategy on these nick sure so um if you're looking to hit these in winter
[00:39:08] uh the cross rivendell trail is great for snowshoeing um there's not really any steep pitches except right below the summit um and do be cautious on north peak um as we mentioned it's all ledgy kind of area with steep drop-offs um baker road is usually plowed in the winter um the mount cube trail is usually accessible off new hampshire 25a they do plow a pull off um another good trail for um snowshoeing with moderate grades um definitely be careful of that crossing though if you're heading
[00:39:36] later in winter or early spring like mike mentioned the kodak trail um apparently quintown road has been plowed um in the last few years up to 2.1 miles in with a limited parking area in front of a house um it will add 0.7 miles each way to the stats we have here um to walk to the trailhead and apparently there's also parking sometimes at the junction of quintown road and moseley brook road in recent years um one thing too is like make sure if you're heading over here like it's not right after
[00:40:04] a snowstorm i actually tried that once unwisely and like this is not an area of new hampshire that's going to get plowed out like quickly after like a blizzard or something like that like it's going to take a little bit it's not like it's right off 93 um then smarts winter notes um dorchester road is usually plowed um to the lambert ridge and ranger trailheads um which also have good snowshoe grades again just good snowshoeing mountains overall there's nothing really too crazy as far
[00:40:27] as terrain on either of these um do be careful on the legy spot with iron rungs on smarts this spot to me too was like it's really interesting some of the areas of the whites they put iron rungs on like i guess you could use in there but it's not like the ledge was that crazy steep or anything like vertical um i guess it kind of just assists there but i think more if anything i could see you getting in trouble if it like got caught on your snowshoe or something when you were going up and
[00:40:51] you weren't paying attention i do wonder if that is a like the iron um rungs if that is a because honestly like the most i see them is in um on the dartmouth trails and then i see them on uh mahoosics as well so okay i wonder if that has to do with like historically the trail clubs might have might have had a philosophy to say like all right this is this is how we're going to set it up instead of ladders we're going to do iron rungs or something does dartmouth outing club do like the mahoosics as well
[00:41:21] they don't but like they do i'm just thinking of like beaver brook trail okay so maybe that was just maybe they might have had some trail builders that back in the day just felt like you know it was for a safety um aspect to use the iron rungs i don't know yeah just sort of their their weapon of choice yep um cool uh so yeah uh both of those should be pretty decent in the winter um the ranger trail
[00:41:47] apparently the crossing of grant brook at the bottom here can be a little interesting um so just be careful that the ranger trail um the guide did mention specifically that that's actually a lot better in the winter because it's so eroded um once you get some snowpack on it it's actually really nice for snowshoeing um mosley brook road up to daniel doan trail is apparently usually plowed i don't know how much winter traffic that gets maybe it does get a good amount but i felt like not too many people went on it when ash and i did that in the summer so i don't know how much you're
[00:42:14] going to get here um j trail uh you're in the same boat as the kodak trail to the cube section um again i'd really be curious how much traffic like those ones that are a little bit further and i would think if you're in the winter everybody's probably hitting smarts by a lambert ridge and cube by like cross rivendell or the mount cube trail and the rest of these wouldn't get a lot of traffic but maybe i'm wrong yeah and again this is i go back to what we talked about in the fall people sleep on these these mountains and it's western new hampshire so they don't think about
[00:42:44] them so if you want quiet and not a big crowd then these are these are good options in the winter as well for sure uh one thing i did want to call out is that uh there is a uh appalachian trail shelter it's called hexacube shelter and uh it's an interesting configuration i think hexacube is like i don't know eight sides or something like that i gotta do the math on that but six six sides six sides yeah but it's a really big shelter and uh around the it's a little bit of a climb up from
[00:43:12] the trail but uh there's a there's water source there as well um but it's a nice shelter a lot of room and um i actually ended up tenting there so there's a bunch of tent sites as well and there's a privy so uh one of the nicer at shelters that i've seen nick cool yeah i visited it before it's definitely something to check out if you get a little bit of time to burn um that hexacube shelter it's like all rock and really neat it's not something you see every day yeah exactly and then um why don't
[00:43:41] we nick just reflect on the trip so you talked about the um you've you've talked about uh your trip with uh dave and liz but so you've done a traverse i've done a traverse and then we we've also done the note and back on uh on mount cube right yeah um done cube twice uh kind of just mentioned being up there with dave and liz a really nice day um but the first time i did it was with my buddy mike
[00:44:09] c um we did this back on it looked like i think it was a veterans day observed holiday back in 2022 um and we actually did just the kodak trail out and back um yeah not nothing much to mention there i remember kind of we got to the summit of cube and i was like oh this is nice and then we both got to like that north peak of cube with moose lock and i was like okay this is this is really nice we were a big fan but that that in itself too is like a decent mileage day if you're doing that out and back but um that was pretty solid um and then smarts i had done back in 2023 with ash um again we did
[00:44:38] the daniel doan trail and did just want to call out that bottom section but nothing super memorable not to say like these peaks aren't cool but nothing super memorable from that hike for me what about you mike yeah so i've done the um i did the traverse from the dartman ski way up to 25a uh on the appalachian trail with tom in the fall definitely highly recommend that i think the highlights of that trip were the the early ledges on smarts mountain were great with the foliage
[00:45:06] uh the fire tower and the the shelter or the the cabin were kind of cool coming down from uh from there to j trail i felt like that section where you went over the bridge and you went over the um the water sources and then up to hexacube was like really nice um graded trail and it was open in the foliage just it felt like you were in like a a color tunnel which was really nice and then
[00:45:32] hexacube shelter was a nice place to just crash for the night and camp out and then early morning get going up the kodak trail to uh the ledges of cube and then experiencing that undercast from the uh the main summit of cube was awesome and then funnily enough me and tom like we were sort of like oh you know we hit the summit we didn't really know much about the north spur at that point uh but we
[00:45:58] both kind of agreed like oh let's go check it out just in case and then when we got up there we were like blown away because the the undercast and the the the view from um from there was just incredible so uh definitely don't sleep on the north summit of um of mount cube because it was like way better than the main summit and lots lots of ledges to explore so that was a good day and then the the second time i was out there was on mount cube just the out and back river crossing was brutal
[00:46:25] um the conditions were kind of like melty but it was still like micro spikes and um it was just a cold kind of early spring end of winter type of day so it was nice to get out but it wasn't like my most memorable trip i don't think yeah no it you did remind me of one thing too probably worth mentioning it and i think this is probably just going to say like it is the at um so there's good amount of traffic there but i think because of where these are in western hampshire like the footing on a lot of the trails at least on the main trails on these peaks are like pretty good
[00:46:54] like they're not super ridiculously eroded you got your normal rocks and roots but um i remember kind of thinking after that day i did with dave and liz like most of that trail is like pretty nice like you deal with ledges and stuff on cube but the footing's pretty nice like you got some cushy dirt and things like that that you don't see in some areas the whites they get a lot more foot traffic so um it's just it's it's a it's a fun trail to hike i guess in itself it's not like brutal at any point it lulls the through hikers into thinking that they're going to have an easier time than they do
[00:47:23] once they get into the real deep deep part of the white mountains but this is a nice area like i can't say i can't stress this enough it's a nice area it's not crowded um great views uh challenging hikes but not like out of control like good hike for people that don't want to do like crazy elevation but still want to be challenged and feel like they got a good workout so uh highly recommend nick yep cool five stars for both of these five stars for smarts and cube yes i like the 52 with the views
[00:47:53] so and i like that it just gets you around the state it gets you out of that main it gets you out of the notches and into different parts of the states definitely check around there like i haven't really enough there's no food places or anything like that that i went to that stand out but i do know like um you know i always like going 25 there's common man in plymouth and uh plenty of little roadside stops for you to check out and there's a couple of breweries on 25 25a i think that are worth it and then there's that town you go through nick that has the rocket ship i love that
[00:48:21] town i don't know what it's called but there's a there's a you know what i'm talking about the rocket ship in the middle of the town it's fresh in my brain yeah i don't know what yeah it's definitely it's not rumney yeah so random why is there a rocket ship in the middle of a town in new hampshire but i don't i don't ask questions i'll have to follow up for a normal slasher episode but i agree it's a it's a good spot over there it's not as well known even for this like i'll be honest like a lot of these i feel like we have a good handle on the views but like if you had to ask me what you could see from the south and west of like that peak i couldn't really i couldn't really tell either
[00:48:50] of those because i just don't know this area as well but it's cool to cool to explore those paths less traveled in western new hampshire yeah so oh yeah it's warren new hampshire warren the only town with a real redstone it's a missile it's a rocket missile so i don't know i don't know the backstory on that one but i got a roadside america link i'll check it out maybe we'll cover that in a future episode sounds good i look forward to it but that's it so listeners you should be well
[00:49:16] prepared to hike these um and you know definitely tag us if you get out there and uh and and do these and then we'll give you a notable hike yep sounds good all right until next time nick
[00:49:29] all right bye mike thank you for listening if you enjoyed the show you can subscribe on apple
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[00:50:20] us next week for another great show until next time on behalf of mike and stomp get out there and crush the peaks