The trail may be short, but the memories of the day on it will be long.
A young bull moose trotted across Route 16 in northern New Hampshire, serving as a welcoming ambassador as we made our way to the expansive woodlands encompassing the Diamond Peaks Trail. Only 1.1 miles long, the trail contains splendid outlooks to a great land.
But the journey is definitely much longer than that.
The trail is located within Dartmouth College’s vast 27,000-acre Second College Grant, a rugged chunk of the untamed North Country, near Errol. The college received the Grant from the state in 1807, and it now contains a handful of camps for the Dartmouth community in an area teeming with mountains and rivers that sees timber harvesting, research and recreation from fly fishing to mountain biking.
Seemingly in a no-man’s land bounded by Maine in the east, Dix’s Grant to the west, Atkinson and Gilmanton Academy Grant to the north and the small town of Wentworth Location to the south, general public access near Diamond Peaks is available through a southeast parcel corridor in Wentworth Location by the community’s small cemetery, at the junction of Route 16 and well-signed Dead Diamond Road.
Although Dead Diamond Road is gated about .2 miles in from the pavement, the non-motorized recreating public is welcome to explore the Grant from that entrance, with limited parking.
From there, the walk on the wild side begins. Though some may find a gravel road stroll during a hike underwhelming, the small, undulating and rocky mountain way — how a mountain bike would have been wonderful on the return trip, and perhaps will be used for a future Grant excursion — along the 2.2-mile trek to the Diamond Peaks trailhead is loaded with eye candy and stories.
Almost immediately on the north side of the gate, the heavens burst open as the road pierces a swelling wetland that would be ripe for winged wildlife appearances. The sub 3,000-foot Mount Dustan stands tall against the sky, the highest point in Wentworth Location. Later, a gate house with its kiosk contains informational tidbits about the Grant landscape, with upland birds, ducks, deer, moose, bear, rabbit and brook trout. There’s also a useful map.
Steps from the gate house, walk over the splendid timber Perley Churchill Bridge spanning the Diamond River, which eventually flows into the Magalloway. Named after a paper company engineer, the bridge was constructed in 1951 and later repaired following damage from a 1981 ice jam. The road follows along a gorge with its deep drops to the water, foreshadowing the cliffs of Diamond Peaks. In the next mile, a couple of structures, a grassy airstrip and a spring are passed. One camp bears a plaque memorializing two Dartmouth doctors who, despite their courageous attempts to survive, perished in a winter 1959 plane crash in the Pemigewasset Wilderness.
At a crossroads by the junction of Swift and Dead Diamond roads stands the management center for the Grant. Across from it are a couple of easy-to-read signs, one pointing to the start of the yellow-blazed Diamond Peaks Trail and both the Alice and Linda ledges. After navigating some weathered planks, say goodbye to the level-like terrain as the pathway steepens quickly, soon leading to a side trail to the left to Alice and a look down to the management center and the valley of the Dead and Swift Diamond rivers, which also flow in the Grant. The ledge also is the front door to decent patches of raspberries found along the trail.
Returning to the main trail, the pathway retains its steep bite as it passes over several fine outlooks with sudden drops. Alhough the trail is just over a mile, at times it felt like the longest mile as the steeps, cols, a few blowdowns and outlooks kept coming until passing a junction with the Diamond Back Trail.
Not long after that, the trail eventually stops at an outstanding cliff vantage point, a survey marker anchored in stone indicating the 2,040-foot top of Diamond Peak. From there, the Magalloway River wiggles its way through the largely undeveloped kingdom. The perch is a fine spot for a snack, only rivaled after the quick short mile back down to that management center porch with its welcoming wooden chairs. Those chairs are fine perches, too, part of a 6.6-mile roundtrip ramble, as a light wind blew across the fantastic backwoods silence.
Marty Basch can be reached at marty.basch@gmail.com.