Square Ledge & Mount Paugus - Sandwich Range Wilderness, New Hampshire | NH 52 with a View | Hike NH

The weather forecast for Friday 9/1/23 looked so perfect I decided to take a day off from work and make a hiking day trip from Southeastern Massachusetts to New Hampshire. I settled on the prospect of Mount Paugus from Ferncroft. In order to make it more interesting and ensure on I was on trail more than in the car, I added on ex-52 with a View peak Square Ledge.
I decided to make a sort of loop with out and backs to both Square Ledge and Mount Paugus. The route was as follows: Kelly Trail, Lawrence Trail, Square Ledge Trail (out and back to Square Ledge), Square Ledge Branch Trail, Oliverian Brook Trail, Lawrence Trail (out and back to Paugus), Old Mast Road. The loop total was around 13.5 miles and 4200' of elevation gain (note that a little bit was definitely added from me going to back to get the camera quite a few times but that was a solid ballpark of the numbers based on my watch and AMC maps). For the record my AllTrails map I made lied (I know better) by about 2 miles and “only” 500’ of elevation gain. I like to make these before I hike but never rely on them for accurate statistics.
I hadn’t been back into this area since we did Whiteface and Passaconaway back in 2018 and I was overdue. The Sandwich Range Wilderness is indeed “wild”, beautiful, and rugged. I got exactly what I wanted, a day with a decent amount of mileage and gain with perfect weather, views, and serenity. I met 4 people all day and take my time messing with autofocus modes and some new filters.
Square Ledge still afforded some interesting views despite being grown in (it was delisted in 2020) and I could see how even a decade ago it probably had much better views. It was a scrambly jaunt up and down for sure. I crossed one other hiker also checking out the delisted peak and we chatted over how beautiful the wilderness area was and how amazing it was that seemingly 95% of the hikers at Ferncroft head for the 4000’ peaks and don’t make it to these other smaller peaks with much better views (at least compared to Passaconaway). This is something I was also guilty of until now.
The amount of spiders and webs across the trails from Square Ledge Branch to Oliverian Brook back to Lawrence was downright impressive. I suspect nobody had been through here in a bit. After I made my way back to the Lawrence Trail and brushed the webs and spiders off I began my ascent (and technically a quick descent on the way below the “Overhang”) up Mount Paugus. I was shocked to find some switchbacks on a newly relocated section of trail up Paugus, they were quite pleasant. They normally don’t make switchbacks in the Whites, that would make the trails “too easy”.
The ledges on the south summit of Mount Paugus were as spectacular as I had heard and expected. You could easily spend hours up here gazing out at Whiteface and Passaconaway, the Lakes Region, Carrigain, Hedgehog, and much more if you explore a bit. Square Ledge was great but this was the true 52 with a View of the day. It was also very cool to look upon Square Ledge just below the summit of Passaconaway.
Alas, I had to make my way back down to Ferncroft. The descent was relatively quick and I made the drive back home to Southeastern Mass for dinner 3 hours later. Another great day in the Whites and I have a new appreciation for this particular wilderness area.
This made for #43 out of my New Hampshire 52 with a View, and my #1 of its delisted peaks!
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Camera:
‪@PanasonicLumixVideo‬
GH6
Lenses:
‪@PanasonicLumixVideo‬ ‪@LeicaCameraGlobal‬
8-18mm 2.8-4.0f asph
12-60mm 2.8-4.0f asph
Microphone:
‪@rodemic‬ VIDEO GO
Chapters:
00:00 Intro at Ferncroft Trailhead Parking Area
00:53 Old Mast Road/Kelley Trail Trailhead
02:11 Old Mast Road/Kelly Trail Split - Up the Kelley Trail
04:28 Heading Towards the Box Canyon Section of the Kelley Trail
04:52 "Random Calf-Stretch Guy"
05:54 Entering the Sandwich Range Wilderness
06:06 Kelley Trail Box Canyon
08:27 Kelley Trail/Lawrence Trail/Oliverian Brook Trail Junction
09:25 Lawrence Trail to Square Ledge Trail
09:32 Lawrence Trail/Old Mast Road/Square Ledge Trail Junction
09:48 Square Ledge Trail to Square Ledge Branch Trail
11:11 Square Ledge Trail/Square Ledge Branch Trail Junction
12:11 Heading up to Square Ledge
12:49 An Outlook Towards Mount Paugus
13:43 Square Ledge Summit
14:52 Square Ledge Summit Panorama
16:48 Back at the Square Ledge Trail Branch Junction & I Broke My Camera Microphone
17:33 Square Ledge Branch Trail to Oliverian Brook Trail
18:00 Square Ledge Branch/Oliverian Brook Trail Junction
18:49 Filling Up Some Water In A Very Cold Brook
19:13 So Many Spider Webs on Oliverian Brook Trail
20:10 Lawrence Trail/Old Mast Road/Square Ledge Trail Junction (Again)
20:21 Lawrence Trail to Mount Paugus
22:34 Switchbacks to The Summit
23:51 (South) Summit of Mount Paugus
24:23 Views from the Summit Ledges
27:10 Outro from the Summit Ledges

[@N8Vlogs]

Dude....I am so proud of you and what this channel has become. This vid was so much better than anything I've seen you produce. Such high quality, great b roll, lovely sounds and a great balance of talking/explaining your trek and nature sounds. I LOVED the vibe of this one and thought the music matched so well, giving it an exploratory feeling while being light and fresh--exactly what fit the bill for the video clips you captured.
Great story telling capped by another beautiful peak bagged. Keep it up!

[@nickhikesandplaysguitar]

Thanks buddy, I really put in a lot of time on this one on the trail filming and editing. Told Ash my goal was to be more "engaging" and actually try to talk more so glad that came across and you enjoyed! Stoked you like the music as well, really enjoy all these tunes by Chris Haugen, wish he had more stuff up so I could use it! Will do, have another one for Mount Tremont that I'm working on right now, actually trying to find some good music now for it.