Neil
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Time for an Adirondack report.
The report and pics are pretty much in synch.
The Adirondacks hold a dazzling array of spectacular places within its famous Blue Line. A great many of them remain incredibly unknown and unvisited in spite of being minutes from some of the most popular trails and routes.
I remember a couple of years ago Glen answering me, “Oh, yes there is a slide on the south side of Saddleback, I’ve been on it.” Then, I was planning on a whack of Averill South when Glen emailed asking if the Saddleback Slide and the basin of Basin interested me.
They interested me very much, which is why we were standing on top of Saddleback rapidly losing core temperature at 9:30 on Saturday morning. Our hike up had been uneventful with the exception of being served hot coffee (sweet heaven!) by Peggy and her husband at the warming hut. There was a lull in the wind just as we got to the clearing above the cliffs so we dropped packs and proceeded to get organized for the drop to the col. Then, the wind tore at us and after losing too much precious body heat we beat a retreat to a sun drenched opening down the trail out of the wind. We ran up and down a steep section several times until we were toasty warm again, sat down and put our crampons on.
We looped a 50-foot length of webbing around a yellow birch, tossed all of our gear down to the landing and went back down the trail 100 feet just get ourselves 100% warm and fully functional. Back at the “belay” I went first and slithered very slowly down over the lip, whipped out my camera (note to self: get skin tight gloves for manipulating metal in sub-zero wind chills) and got some pics of Glen doing it in the proper style.
Instead of continuing directly down the fall-line (the winter route) we erroneously made a right turn and followed the cliff wall which brought us out to the trail on the open rock. What the heck, down we went and I more or less butt-slithered, facing Basin and taking great care to place my crampons on the rock and lift them off again as I got down to where we put the snowshoes back on.
The views were amazing. The sky was cobalt blue and snow was pluming off of the big summits and swirling across the treetops on Basin.
The trip down to the col was very steep in deep, unconsolidated snow. Rather than attempt to leave a stair-case of steps for the return trip we snowshoe-skiied and/or buttslid down to flatter ground. From the low point we hung a hard left turn and entered thicker woods. What a pleasant surprise! Not only did we not sink in very deeply but the woods were quite open and within 10 minutes we were out on the slide in the blazing sun with no wind.
All around us were spectacular views: back up to Saddleback along the slide and cliffs, Dix, Nippletop, Pinnacle Ridge and of course Basin – the star of the show.
We had previously agreed upon a slow descent of the slide in order to create a starircase, as opposed to a ramp, to climb back out on. This was easier said than done because the follower had less snow resisting his descent than the leader and tended to slide. The technique that worked best was to rotate one shoe outward and place it half-way out of the deep furrow.
The base of Basin was in our faces but it was also pretty far away and so I brought up the question of a turnaround time after we had left the slide. We traversed some woods and found ourselves below “Big Pink” a massive slab of pink rock that was very white and smooth on Saturday. After traversing along the base of Big Pink it was clear that the base itself of the Basin Slides was beyond our turnaround time so we hung out with our tongues hanging out and ohhed and aahed at the stunning environment. So beautiful, so rugged and so cruelly hostile for we puny humans.
With deep satisfaction we continued on our fantastic adventure by shifting into stump-pulling gear and slowly made our way back up our “staircase”. This proved to be quite physically demanding. One 10-foot step took me no less than 5 minutes to get up.
Glen had led the upper 2/3 of the slide so I took over the lead. The woods portion to the col was a cake walk. From there to the cliffs we had an experience that neither of us will forget for a long time I’m sure.
The wind had really picked up and it swept across our path from left to right carrying snow crystals. The steep pitch was not a problem. All we had to do was kick in one shoe, plant the ice ax to the hilt in the center of the trail above us, push up with one leg while pulling with both arms on the ax, kick in the other shoe and repeat this as often as necessary to get to the cliffs. We didn’t rest much because it was nippy and that wind was relentless. However, I did pause a few times and gazed over at the big peaks. They had great plumes of snow blowing off of them, just like Everest!
I spied the webbing flapping in the wind and a few dozen more steps brought us there. Like machines we switched over to crampons, Glen went up first, I passed him all the gear which he carefully stowed. Poor Glen stood there in the chilly blast while I tried to figure out how to get myself up. I made it (duh!) and Glen immediately took off with the packs while I grabbed the webbing and bunched it up under the front of my jacket, grabbed both pairs of snowshoes and my ax and met Glen who was returning for more stuff. He smiled ear to ear when he saw I had everything with me.
After switching over to hiking mode we had a very pleasant trip back to the warming hut where Peggy and Rich (?) plied us with hot chocolate and we chatted for half an hour as darkness enveloped the Johns Brook Valley. Just as we were leaving we met up with MtnHiker and Britdog and they regaled us with tales of “knock-em-down” winds on Little Hay. We followed them out for a while but I had to run to keep up with them so we tapered off the pace.
A sliver of a moon was just bright enough at our backs to be able to hike without headlamps (but we eventually turned them on) and Bennys Brook slide was glowing faintly on Lower Wolf Jaw. When we got back to the car Glen looked at his watch and said, “thirteen hours fifteen minutes”. What a great day it was.
The report and pics are pretty much in synch.
The Adirondacks hold a dazzling array of spectacular places within its famous Blue Line. A great many of them remain incredibly unknown and unvisited in spite of being minutes from some of the most popular trails and routes.
I remember a couple of years ago Glen answering me, “Oh, yes there is a slide on the south side of Saddleback, I’ve been on it.” Then, I was planning on a whack of Averill South when Glen emailed asking if the Saddleback Slide and the basin of Basin interested me.
They interested me very much, which is why we were standing on top of Saddleback rapidly losing core temperature at 9:30 on Saturday morning. Our hike up had been uneventful with the exception of being served hot coffee (sweet heaven!) by Peggy and her husband at the warming hut. There was a lull in the wind just as we got to the clearing above the cliffs so we dropped packs and proceeded to get organized for the drop to the col. Then, the wind tore at us and after losing too much precious body heat we beat a retreat to a sun drenched opening down the trail out of the wind. We ran up and down a steep section several times until we were toasty warm again, sat down and put our crampons on.
We looped a 50-foot length of webbing around a yellow birch, tossed all of our gear down to the landing and went back down the trail 100 feet just get ourselves 100% warm and fully functional. Back at the “belay” I went first and slithered very slowly down over the lip, whipped out my camera (note to self: get skin tight gloves for manipulating metal in sub-zero wind chills) and got some pics of Glen doing it in the proper style.
Instead of continuing directly down the fall-line (the winter route) we erroneously made a right turn and followed the cliff wall which brought us out to the trail on the open rock. What the heck, down we went and I more or less butt-slithered, facing Basin and taking great care to place my crampons on the rock and lift them off again as I got down to where we put the snowshoes back on.
The views were amazing. The sky was cobalt blue and snow was pluming off of the big summits and swirling across the treetops on Basin.
The trip down to the col was very steep in deep, unconsolidated snow. Rather than attempt to leave a stair-case of steps for the return trip we snowshoe-skiied and/or buttslid down to flatter ground. From the low point we hung a hard left turn and entered thicker woods. What a pleasant surprise! Not only did we not sink in very deeply but the woods were quite open and within 10 minutes we were out on the slide in the blazing sun with no wind.
All around us were spectacular views: back up to Saddleback along the slide and cliffs, Dix, Nippletop, Pinnacle Ridge and of course Basin – the star of the show.
We had previously agreed upon a slow descent of the slide in order to create a starircase, as opposed to a ramp, to climb back out on. This was easier said than done because the follower had less snow resisting his descent than the leader and tended to slide. The technique that worked best was to rotate one shoe outward and place it half-way out of the deep furrow.
The base of Basin was in our faces but it was also pretty far away and so I brought up the question of a turnaround time after we had left the slide. We traversed some woods and found ourselves below “Big Pink” a massive slab of pink rock that was very white and smooth on Saturday. After traversing along the base of Big Pink it was clear that the base itself of the Basin Slides was beyond our turnaround time so we hung out with our tongues hanging out and ohhed and aahed at the stunning environment. So beautiful, so rugged and so cruelly hostile for we puny humans.
With deep satisfaction we continued on our fantastic adventure by shifting into stump-pulling gear and slowly made our way back up our “staircase”. This proved to be quite physically demanding. One 10-foot step took me no less than 5 minutes to get up.
Glen had led the upper 2/3 of the slide so I took over the lead. The woods portion to the col was a cake walk. From there to the cliffs we had an experience that neither of us will forget for a long time I’m sure.
The wind had really picked up and it swept across our path from left to right carrying snow crystals. The steep pitch was not a problem. All we had to do was kick in one shoe, plant the ice ax to the hilt in the center of the trail above us, push up with one leg while pulling with both arms on the ax, kick in the other shoe and repeat this as often as necessary to get to the cliffs. We didn’t rest much because it was nippy and that wind was relentless. However, I did pause a few times and gazed over at the big peaks. They had great plumes of snow blowing off of them, just like Everest!
I spied the webbing flapping in the wind and a few dozen more steps brought us there. Like machines we switched over to crampons, Glen went up first, I passed him all the gear which he carefully stowed. Poor Glen stood there in the chilly blast while I tried to figure out how to get myself up. I made it (duh!) and Glen immediately took off with the packs while I grabbed the webbing and bunched it up under the front of my jacket, grabbed both pairs of snowshoes and my ax and met Glen who was returning for more stuff. He smiled ear to ear when he saw I had everything with me.
After switching over to hiking mode we had a very pleasant trip back to the warming hut where Peggy and Rich (?) plied us with hot chocolate and we chatted for half an hour as darkness enveloped the Johns Brook Valley. Just as we were leaving we met up with MtnHiker and Britdog and they regaled us with tales of “knock-em-down” winds on Little Hay. We followed them out for a while but I had to run to keep up with them so we tapered off the pace.
A sliver of a moon was just bright enough at our backs to be able to hike without headlamps (but we eventually turned them on) and Bennys Brook slide was glowing faintly on Lower Wolf Jaw. When we got back to the car Glen looked at his watch and said, “thirteen hours fifteen minutes”. What a great day it was.
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