Santanoni Peak

This trail leads to Duck Hole through the pass between the Santanoni range and Henderson Mt. and gives access to the paths up Santanoni, Panther and Couchsachraga peaks. With the recent acquisition, the R side of the closed old trail to Santanoni Peak is again open. From the trail register (0.0 mi), the trail follows a good gravel road with blue markers at gentle grades. At 1.1 mi it crosses the outlet to Harkness Lake, where there is a great view of Wallface Mt. The trail now climbs over a small rise, drops down, and begins a longer climb that eases just before a sharp R turn off the road at 1.8 mi. The trail now descends along the R bank of a brook, crosses the brook on a good bridge, and continues on the flat through a grassy clearing with plenty of raspberries. At the far end of the clearing the trail swings L and crosses Santanoni Brook at 2.1 mi on an elaborate bridge with a series of log steps up the far bank. At the top of the bank, the trail swings L onto an old tote road and begins ascending at easy to moderate grades up the valley to a series of beautiful Cascades on the L at 3.4 mi. Approximately 200 yd past the cascades, the now legal path to Santanoni Peak goes L just after a sharp R turn at the end of a muddy area. The name of the highest peak W of the Hudson River and the dominating one in the range is derived from Saint Anthony. This name filtered down through the French Canadians to the Abenaki Indians, who adopted their own pronunciation of the words. This path follows the route of a trail originally cut by the Tahawus Club. Formal maintenance ceased at least 70 years ago and only sporadic informal maintenance kept this trail passable through to 1980 when the private landowner closed it to public travel. Since the sale of this land to first the Open Space Institute and then to the state, a new round of informal maintenance has again made this a feasible route direct to or from Santanoni. The path starts at 3.5 mi. on the Duck Hole via Bradley Pond trail at a cairn approximately 200yd past the cascades in Santanoni Brook. The path immediately crosses the brook and then veers L to avoid beaver activity. It then follows the R bank of Santanoni Brook before pulling steeply away and up to a reroute to the R of the "Hillary Step" at just over a mile from the marked trail. Soon climbing steeply through thick scrub to an open knob just N of the actual summit at about 2 mi from the marked trail. Here the path joins the path that follows the crest of the ridge between Panther Peak and Santanoni Peak. For those electing to descend this path, the open knob is the second bump N of the actual summit.