Big Slide on the Ides of March 2014

Paradox · Mar 16, 2014

Big slide finished up the ADK46-R and New England 111 4000'-er lists for me. Culminating 5 lists in two consecutive weekends.

Laurie, Mike, Nichole, and Tom accompanied me to the summit. We met up, a bit by chance at 7:00 am at the Noonmark diner and had some breakfast. Then we dropped off two cars at the Rooster Comb parking and carpooled it to the Garden Parking area. Good thing too, the parking was almost full and we had to gun it into an un-plowed parking space.

We left the trailhead after signing in at 8:00 am on the dot. There had been heavy snow in the area on Wednesday and Thursday but we found the trail well broken out and reasonably fast. We got some nice views from the ledges that make up the Brothers. We were all wearing either MSR's or Tubbs flex Alps, and no one had any significant complaints about traction. The Brother's feature some steep parts as does the last quarter of a mile from the junction to the summit. Somewhere near the three mile mail we passed three fellows that had been doing a great job smoothing out the trail for us.

After that we still had one snowshoe-er out ahead of us and we slowed a bit. We met up with our trailbreak-er near the summit. He stated he was three away from finishing his ADK grid. He graciously took our group summit photo. The trip down was uneventful. 4:05 to the summit and 2:05 coming down. Then we headed to the Ausable Inn in Keene Valley for some beers and burgers which were all very good. As we we finishing up who should walk in to congratulate me but John and Jim. John I had known since about 7th grade, but we went to different high schools and lost contact for about 35 years. Until hiking together about 5 years ago in the Dacks. John had learned of my finish from another friend and stopped in to say congrats. Many thanks!

GPS track and photos on Wikiloc: http://www.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id=6348731