Sugar maple has the hardest, densest wood of all of the maples. As for the part of the tree with the densest wood, I imagine the oldest, mid-trunk will be the densest. A good strong limb should be plenty dense. Red maple is also fairly dense/hard but not in the same range as sugar maple. I bet a stummel made of tiger wood from a sugar maple would be amazing.
The NASPC has an interesting article on different woods and it had this excerpt on rock maple (aka sugar maple):
"Maple burl. I made three pipes out of sound, unspalted rock maple burl--corner cutoffs from a bowl blank. (Spalt is rot in the early stages. Back in Maine, we called spalted wood dozy [doughzee]. Two of the pipes went to collectors who haven't smoked them. The third was commissioned by a gentleman who wanted a big pipe to fit his hands (2 1/8" tall, 6 3/4" long, 3/4" thick walls, weight: 3 oz.). Its owner, Douglas Walker, sent me these comments on the pipe for this article: "Tim has created for me a pipe, which in contrast to its imposing stature, is quite light, and comfortable to smoke. Having had most of my smoking experience with briar pipes, I was quite pleased to have a pipe smoke like a dream from bowl one! The mild aromatic I chose for this pipe did not change the outer wall temperature one bit, and there was no need for building a carbon 'cake' in the bowl for a nice smooth flavor. The characteristics of the shape and maple together blended like a new found love, leaving me to be the joyous voyeur! I have been smoking this pipe for nearly five months now, and each bowl smokes as well as the first."
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