18 September 2017: Sandwich Dome and Jennings Peak

Decided to spend the day going up to bag 2 peaks on the 52WAV list. I decided to take the longer, but easier route up to Sandwich Dome and Jennings peak.

History: The original name for Sandwich Dome was Black Mountain, the name given by the local residents. This changed when the geographer Arnold Guyot published his map of the White Mountains in 1860, when he applied the name Sandwich Dome to the massive peak that straddles the towns of Sandwich and Waterville Valley because there were numerous Black Mountains in New Hampshire. There still are, actually. 15 years later the name was utilized by Charles Hitchcock’s state geological survey, and Moses Sweetser adopted it for his 1876 guidebook., reasoning that the mountain is the most conspicuous peak in Sandwich and that from the lake country to the south it appears as a flattened dome.


Peak Elevation: 3980 ft (Sandwich Dome), 3460 ft (Jennings Peak)
Net Elevation Gain: 2800 ft (approx)
Trail: Drakes’s Brook Trail, Sandwich Mountain Trail, Jennings Peak spur
Length: 11.4 mi
Time on Trail : 0915
Time off Trail: 1500


Getting there is pretty easy, taking NH-49 into Waterville Valley. The parking there is free and the trailhead wasn’t too terrible to find. There are picnic tables there by the trailhead. The Sandwich Mountain Trail departs from the other side of the parking lot. Drake’s brook Trail essentially starts off as an access road that must be or have been used for logging. There are a number of what I presume are Nordic skiing trails along the way.

A partly cloudy day turned out to be a great day to go out and get some elevation therapy. The elevation change over this mileage makes it a nice, easy graded path up for most of the way. Reaching the junction with Sandwich Mountain Trail, I opted to go to Jennings Peak first. The views were pretty good in spite of the low-laying rolling cloud cover that was in the process of burning off as I ascended. I chatted up a gentleman there for a few minutes and then moved on to Sandwich Dome, where I stayed for a bit chatting with two women and their dogs while I basked in the sun a little bit and had a snack. The descent I opted to descend the same way I went up, even though the other route I would have taken would have put me in the same parking lot as I started.


Photos:

Sandwich Dome, Jennings Peak; 18SEP17

This entry is slightly backdated from a time later in 2017.