Two loaves of sugar, please

What the hell is a "Sugarloaf" anyway?

I always appreciate it when someone with a great name doesn’t let the competition stop them from using it. Take Steve McQueen—not the late American actor, but the British video artist turned director who helmed excellent movies like Hunger, Shame, and 12 Years A Slave between 2008 and 2013. A less confident version of the guy might have called himself “Steve R. McQueen” (his middle name is Rodney) as a means of distinguishment from the Steve McQueen that everyone knew. But nope. Clearly it was time for two Steve McQueens, and modern cinema was richer for it.

You can observe the same audacity in the world of New England trails. We’ve talked about the striking number of trails in the northeast that are named after The Devil in some way. There are even two Mount Monadnocks, in the southernmost part of New Hampshire and the northernmost reaches of Vermont respectively. But there’s another well-worn moniker shared by peaks and trails. which has intrigued and stumped me.

”Sugarloaf.”

For several of you, perhaps the word brings to mind Maine’s largest ski resort, in the Carrabassett Valley. I’ll be really impressed if your first thought was the Sugarloaf Mountain in New Hampshire’s Nash Stream Forest, north of the White Mountains. (There used to be a firewatch cabin at the summit of this mountain and the toilet is still up there!) But personally, the name “Sugarloaf” takes me back to a freewheeling chapter of life when I was working as a spring caretaker at the Appalachian Mountain Club’s Zealand Falls Hut. The season went from late March through early June, and the long dirt access road from Route 302 to the Zealand trailhead was closed to cars during the majority of those weeks, as the ground was thawing and thereby squishy. This meant that whenever I needed to head to the valley to pick up some food or a new romance novel by Virginia Henley (the OG), I had to hike three miles down the Zealand Trail to the parking area and *then* I had to walk an additional five miles down the closed road, making for an 18-mile round trip just to pick up some Bagel Bites and paperback erotica! When walking the long road, I would usually put in my earbuds, queue up an album on my battered old iPod (usually Chromatics’ Kill For Love) and zone out for the next 90 minutes. But occasionally, something on the side of the road would catch my eye. And one of these distractions was a wooden sign for a pathway that led to two co-joined high points known as North and Middle Sugarloaf.

Whenever I passed the trail, I was too mission-focused to bother checking out these twin Sugaloaf peaks. But every time, I couldn’t help but wonder, what the fuck is a Sugarloaf anyway? I assumed that the word was derived from a long-lost children’s story involving wizards with cotton candy beards and castles made of marzipan. But in fact, a Sugarloaf was a very real and literal thing until the late 19th Century. Back then, refined sugar was usually packed into a conical loaf-like form before going to market. The just-boiled, viscous sugar was poured into a loaf-shaped mold, where it would harden into something that you could wrap in paper. You could say that the Sugarloaf was a precursor to the convenience of sugar cubes or bags of granulated sugar. To cut your Sugarloaf down to size, you had to hack away at the thing with a pair of “sugar nips”—metal pinchers that look kind of like miniature fireplace tongs.

I don’t think I need to explain why several of New England’s mountains were likened to Sugarloaves back in the era when mountains were being named. But given that we’re less than two weeks from May, when New England spring get sultrier and sweatier, I want to focus on North and Middle Sugarloaf, in the heart of the White Mountains. Last spring, around this time, I was driving along 302 and I decided to finally visit the two peaks via the Sugarloaf Trail, after walking past the sign so many times. And let me tell you: this Sugarloaf ramble is easily one of our finest spring mountain hikes.

Let’s say you’re looking to climb North and Middle Sugarloaf before the access road opens to vehicles. (This usually happens in late May.) What you do is simple. As you drive east on 302 past the access road entry gate, you’ll immediately see a gigantic parking lot on your left. This is actually the start of a road to Lower Falls, in the nearby forest. But you can just leave your car here, walk back down 302, and stride past the closed gate to begin walking up the road. A winding climb up a steep wooded hillside soon levels out, and once you cross a bridge over the charming Zealand River, you’ll be greeted on the other side by the sign for the Sugarloaf Trail. Make a right and follow it.

The ascent begins as a rocky riverside stroll that feels much farther from busy roads than you actually are. There’s something about the heft of the river and the way that it slices through the trees that evokes the most remote parts of northern New England. And this vibe only intensifies as the Sugarloaf Trail branches off to the left and begins climbing through a dense, deciduous forest at a moderate grade, with plenty of stone stairs and a refreshing deficit of slippery tree roots. This is a popular trail during the summer months and thereby, it’s well-maintained. And it only takes about 10 minutes of climbing before you encounter one of the trail’s most beloved features. A massive rock formation with a gap through which the most svelte, non-claustrophobic hikers can squeeze. This sort of rock formation is often called a “lemon squeezer” and it’s yet another allusion to kitchen business. I doubt this is random coincidence. Imagine being out in the White Mountains charting the land and coming up with names for all the peaks, shivering, sodden, and dreaming of homestyle nourishment. If I had been in this position, Mount Adams may have been called Pork Butt Peak or Mount au Gratin.

In any event, North and Middle Sugarloaf are close neighbors and when you reach the junction for the two peaks, you might wonder which sequence they’re best enjoyed in. My advice: go north first, and then backtrack to savor the middle. The short climb to North Sugarloaf is a standard boreal jaunt and the exposed summit offers a worthy view of local landmarks like the Bretton Woods ski resort and the red-roofed Mount Washington Hotel. But for ascendant thrills and scenic ambience, Middle Sugarloaf wins by a few hairs. The relatively quick climb to this mountaintop includes a long wooden stepladder climb—one of those features that makes you wonder when the bolts that attach the ladder to the cliff were last replaced. (If there are attachment bolts to begin with!) Thankfully the steps on the ladder are flat and wide enough to offer relative stability to those who are less prone to scrabbling up and down such things. And the summit itself is just a few paces beyond the top of the stepladder.

If the view from North Sugarloaf spotlights the visibly developed valley, the Middle Sugarloaf vista is all about the rustling green inferno of the Zealand Valley and its much bigger cousin, the Pemigewasset Wilderness. But for both peaks, the view is more than just gazing down at what’s beneath you. The real awe-inspiring quality of the view here is the sensation of being surrounded by substantially bigger mountains like the northern Presidentials and nearby 4,000 footers like Mount Hale and Mount Tom. This puts North and Middle Sugarloaf in a genre of mountain that I like to call “Podium Peaks.” Just like the late Seiji Ozawa presiding over the Boston Symphony Orchestra from his podium, overwhelmed by the grandeur of Symphony Hall, you’re in the unique position of sizing up the White Mountains from the middle. It’s a glorious seat—one of the best in the house—and an affirmation that size really isn’t everything, so far as mountain are concerned. The ‘loaves are only 2,538 feet and 2,310 feet tall.

Which further makes this hike a banner spring expedition. By May, most of the snow will be gone from the upper heights of the peaks, and the thawing ground will have had more time to dry up and firm up. (Still, you might want to bring micro spikes, in case there’s any “monorail” ice lingering on parts of the trail.) And if, like me, you had winter hiking or camping ambitions that didn’t materialize this year due to sloth or soupier winter conditions than expected, you might not be ready to throw yourself at Mount Moosilauke, North Baldface, or any of the more hulking mounts in the region. We’ll get there later—in practice and in this newsletter. But for now, picture yourself in someone’s kitchen during the Ulysses S. Grant years, approaching a fresh Sugarloaf with a pair of sugar nips, ready for a little buzz of sweetness. Chip away, and enjoy.

North and Middle Sugarloaf via the Sugarloaf Trail
Hike distance: 5.5 miles out-and-back
Elevation gain: 1,293 feet
CLICK HERE for a trail map

Here’s the audio episode for this week’s newsletter:

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Some personal news: I’m currently reporting a story for the Boston Globe that involves hiking the entire 93-ish mile perimeter of the City of Boston. Why? Because I thought it would be fun and enlightening and really weird….and it has been! I divided the hike into seven 13-mile segments and the spectrum of places through which we’ve hiked has been positively dizzying. When tracing the border of East Boston, my friend Katie and I literally walked through Logan Airport via little-known passageways that connect the terminals, and we found an in-airport chapel with candles and one laid-over traveler in one of the pews, catching a few hours of sleep between flights! 90 minutes later, we were standing among the grasses of Belle Isle Marsh, watching planes land at Logan. If you want to follow my remaining two segments of the perimeter hike, check out my Twitter page (for real-time updates) or my Instagram (for short post-hike slideshows.) And watch the Ideas section of the Globe in mid-to-late May for the full walk narrative.