Neil
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This was one helluva trip. An amazing journey that I'll never forget. Like, no matter how rough day-to-day life gets I now have a mental shield I can withdraw behind by reminding myself of the day I did the Blake Slide.
This trip started when I took pics of the slide from Dix last summer. Then I think Timmus asked me about doing it for her 45th peak. After the usual research we were all set to go the day we did Marshall in the pouring rain. Then things all fell into place for yesterday and there we were at Elk Pass at 10:30 am. on a beautiful sunny ADK morning.
The whack starts just after a tiny bridge over the outlet of the Elk Pass Swamp, just before a hard left turn in the trail up to Nippletop. There was just a tiny trickle of water flowing. Now, Julie had never bushwhacked and I was supposed to be the "expert". When she asked me what I usually wore on whacks I said shorts, a T-Shirt and runners. I remembered the whack down the creek to the Nippletop Slide as being pretty easy with lots of little herd trails interwoven. To my surprise it was a pretty tough and scratchy business with lots of pokey things and fresh blowdown. The going was really slow and a lot thicker than I remembered. At times there is a clear herd trail but maybe this made things worse due to the fresh blowdown. The herd trail often does a disappearing act anyway. After one nasty stretch getting around the final swamp before the descent begins I said to Julie that as far as difficulty goes that was a 4 out of 5. Was she relieved! She thought this was a normal day at the whacker's office. Poor her. I felt kind of bad about her nice soft skin getting trashed too.
(If you are going to do the Nippletop or Blake Slide remember to stick close to the drainage here. The lay of the land will constantly lead you away from it and you have to keep forcing yourself down to your right. This is a very important thing to remember)
It took 50 minutes to cover the .5 miles to the base of the Ntop slide where we took a break. I noticed that Julie's boots offered her very little traction on the rather slippery rock there, which gave me something to worry about for later.
From here the one mile to the turn for the Blake Slide was unknown territory for me and I had no beta about what the trip would be like. I hoped it would be faster. It turned out to be a pure delight. One of my favourite all time bushwhacks.
We walked along past the base of the Nip Slide and picked up a nice open and dry drainage that led us 200 easy yards back to the creek. We rock-hopped for a while but Julie’s boots were slippery…and anyway it was easier walking along the side in the fairly open forest. We cruised through a completely wild land in and out of open woods and the creek. At one point the creek disappeared underground and we walked in the bed that split and rejoined itself as it wound through gorges lined by rocky cliffs. Pure heaven. The best was yet to come.
There is a set of falls marked on the map and, right on time, the creek seemed dropped off into an abyss. The best choice looked to be to go left of the falls and this was definitely true. I butt slid down a steep embankment and when I looked around I could see we were in a huge horseshoe shaped canyon with walls at least 100 feet high. We stopped at the sun-drenched pool at the base of the falls for a half hour resting, dunking our heads, eating, pumping water and getting set for the whack up to the slide which was going to start in less than 200 yards.
I planned this as gps guided trip but of course in the canyon had no reception. As we continued downstream I still couldn’t get reception so I based our turnoff point on the altimeter and used the compass for our correct (I hoped) direction. I didn’t really like the uncertainty- it can be hard to hit a slide dead on in the thick bush- but figured I’d get back “on-line” soon enough.
Point of interest: there was a sign that pointed upstream and said, “Falls - .2 miles - ELL”. There was a maintained trail visible on the right (when descending) bank so I suppose Elk Lake Lodge sends their guests up there to see the spectacular falls and canyon.
The whack up to the slide wasn’t an easy one, at least not the way we went. It was thick and we kept getting led to the right by much easier terrain and then having to cut hard left to correct course. My gut instincts said to go more and more right but the instruments said otherwise and I trusted them a lot more than my gut. At one point Julie asked me in a very polite tone of voice if I could show her where we were. I only had 100 meter accuracy on the gps which kept cutting in and out and kept re-dialing new bearings into the compass whenever I got a chance. Finally, we were cross-sloping, gaining no elevation, when we got that magic moment of seeing the base of the slide. Actually, we saw the sun shining on the trees on the far side of the slide before we saw the exposed rock.
This slide is a real beauty. Very wide and all pure, bare, slabby rock. I would rate the bottom half as easy. No steeper than East Dix or Wright. We gained elevation, stopping often for the expanding views of the Dixes and Nippletop. Eventually, a long way still from Pinnacle ridge, the slide stopped at a thick curtain of cedar. We went into the forest to the right and looked around for more slide but there was none so we got back onto the gps bearing, cut through the curtain of cedar and the slide started up all over again. Faced with the prospect of whacking the rest of the way we were really happy to see all that bare slab of rock towering overhead. The slide does this repeatedly. It hits a grown in patch and you think that’s it. No more slide. If you stick to your bearing though you will be rewarded over and over again.
The upper half is steeper and I would rate it as medium difficulty. Julie’s boots were fine after all and I was having a ball because I had changed into sticky soled approach shoes back at the falls. The views just kept on improving and as the hour got later the luminosity got richer and deeper. We got to the slide at 2:20, 6 hours and 20 minutes after the gate at the Ausable Club.
The slide petered out again but by following a very narrow and steep drainage bordered by steeply sloping slabs (very cool climbing) we came out at a final section of wide-open rock. It was a little steeper now and we were nearing the end so we stopped for nice snack and took in the absolutely incredible views. What a place to be! A true, “pinch me, I’m dreaming” experience.
All good things must come to an end and the final 20 feet of elevation gain got a difficult rating from me. No problem for the sticky shoes and Julie contoured easily to the left and then we were faced with thick, steep whacking for about 5 minutes to the Pinnacle Ridge Trail. That trail is a true storybook path in the woods and we were ecstatic to be on it after all we had been through. I wondered if people know just how close they were to the views from the upper slide when they walk past it.
Anyway, there is a rock a little closer to Blake that has stunning views of the Great Range including the Amp on Basin. After looking at the Dixes and Ntop for the past couple of hours it was mind blowing to see the entire Great Range, Marcy, Allen, Redfield, The North River range and more from that lookout.
I thought I would be counting Blake as a bushwhack summit but after we descended into a col and climbed about 250 feet to Blake’s Summit on the trail I didn’t feel that it should count. It sure counted for Julie’s 45th in any case! As we were slogging up Colvin we met up with 2 kids who were doing a Dix Marathon. They had done the Dixes, whacked to Dial, hiked Nippletop and Colvin and now were on their way to Blake and would turn around and exit at the Ausable club. They had been at it since 3 am!
On our way past the golf course a guy came running out of his cottage and gave us each an ice cold Heineken and we spent 15 minutes talking 46 talk and getting eaten by mosquitoes before getting back to the car 15 hours after starting out.
And that’s the end of the Blake Slide Story.
This trip started when I took pics of the slide from Dix last summer. Then I think Timmus asked me about doing it for her 45th peak. After the usual research we were all set to go the day we did Marshall in the pouring rain. Then things all fell into place for yesterday and there we were at Elk Pass at 10:30 am. on a beautiful sunny ADK morning.
The whack starts just after a tiny bridge over the outlet of the Elk Pass Swamp, just before a hard left turn in the trail up to Nippletop. There was just a tiny trickle of water flowing. Now, Julie had never bushwhacked and I was supposed to be the "expert". When she asked me what I usually wore on whacks I said shorts, a T-Shirt and runners. I remembered the whack down the creek to the Nippletop Slide as being pretty easy with lots of little herd trails interwoven. To my surprise it was a pretty tough and scratchy business with lots of pokey things and fresh blowdown. The going was really slow and a lot thicker than I remembered. At times there is a clear herd trail but maybe this made things worse due to the fresh blowdown. The herd trail often does a disappearing act anyway. After one nasty stretch getting around the final swamp before the descent begins I said to Julie that as far as difficulty goes that was a 4 out of 5. Was she relieved! She thought this was a normal day at the whacker's office. Poor her. I felt kind of bad about her nice soft skin getting trashed too.
(If you are going to do the Nippletop or Blake Slide remember to stick close to the drainage here. The lay of the land will constantly lead you away from it and you have to keep forcing yourself down to your right. This is a very important thing to remember)
It took 50 minutes to cover the .5 miles to the base of the Ntop slide where we took a break. I noticed that Julie's boots offered her very little traction on the rather slippery rock there, which gave me something to worry about for later.
From here the one mile to the turn for the Blake Slide was unknown territory for me and I had no beta about what the trip would be like. I hoped it would be faster. It turned out to be a pure delight. One of my favourite all time bushwhacks.
We walked along past the base of the Nip Slide and picked up a nice open and dry drainage that led us 200 easy yards back to the creek. We rock-hopped for a while but Julie’s boots were slippery…and anyway it was easier walking along the side in the fairly open forest. We cruised through a completely wild land in and out of open woods and the creek. At one point the creek disappeared underground and we walked in the bed that split and rejoined itself as it wound through gorges lined by rocky cliffs. Pure heaven. The best was yet to come.
There is a set of falls marked on the map and, right on time, the creek seemed dropped off into an abyss. The best choice looked to be to go left of the falls and this was definitely true. I butt slid down a steep embankment and when I looked around I could see we were in a huge horseshoe shaped canyon with walls at least 100 feet high. We stopped at the sun-drenched pool at the base of the falls for a half hour resting, dunking our heads, eating, pumping water and getting set for the whack up to the slide which was going to start in less than 200 yards.
I planned this as gps guided trip but of course in the canyon had no reception. As we continued downstream I still couldn’t get reception so I based our turnoff point on the altimeter and used the compass for our correct (I hoped) direction. I didn’t really like the uncertainty- it can be hard to hit a slide dead on in the thick bush- but figured I’d get back “on-line” soon enough.
Point of interest: there was a sign that pointed upstream and said, “Falls - .2 miles - ELL”. There was a maintained trail visible on the right (when descending) bank so I suppose Elk Lake Lodge sends their guests up there to see the spectacular falls and canyon.
The whack up to the slide wasn’t an easy one, at least not the way we went. It was thick and we kept getting led to the right by much easier terrain and then having to cut hard left to correct course. My gut instincts said to go more and more right but the instruments said otherwise and I trusted them a lot more than my gut. At one point Julie asked me in a very polite tone of voice if I could show her where we were. I only had 100 meter accuracy on the gps which kept cutting in and out and kept re-dialing new bearings into the compass whenever I got a chance. Finally, we were cross-sloping, gaining no elevation, when we got that magic moment of seeing the base of the slide. Actually, we saw the sun shining on the trees on the far side of the slide before we saw the exposed rock.
This slide is a real beauty. Very wide and all pure, bare, slabby rock. I would rate the bottom half as easy. No steeper than East Dix or Wright. We gained elevation, stopping often for the expanding views of the Dixes and Nippletop. Eventually, a long way still from Pinnacle ridge, the slide stopped at a thick curtain of cedar. We went into the forest to the right and looked around for more slide but there was none so we got back onto the gps bearing, cut through the curtain of cedar and the slide started up all over again. Faced with the prospect of whacking the rest of the way we were really happy to see all that bare slab of rock towering overhead. The slide does this repeatedly. It hits a grown in patch and you think that’s it. No more slide. If you stick to your bearing though you will be rewarded over and over again.
The upper half is steeper and I would rate it as medium difficulty. Julie’s boots were fine after all and I was having a ball because I had changed into sticky soled approach shoes back at the falls. The views just kept on improving and as the hour got later the luminosity got richer and deeper. We got to the slide at 2:20, 6 hours and 20 minutes after the gate at the Ausable Club.
The slide petered out again but by following a very narrow and steep drainage bordered by steeply sloping slabs (very cool climbing) we came out at a final section of wide-open rock. It was a little steeper now and we were nearing the end so we stopped for nice snack and took in the absolutely incredible views. What a place to be! A true, “pinch me, I’m dreaming” experience.
All good things must come to an end and the final 20 feet of elevation gain got a difficult rating from me. No problem for the sticky shoes and Julie contoured easily to the left and then we were faced with thick, steep whacking for about 5 minutes to the Pinnacle Ridge Trail. That trail is a true storybook path in the woods and we were ecstatic to be on it after all we had been through. I wondered if people know just how close they were to the views from the upper slide when they walk past it.
Anyway, there is a rock a little closer to Blake that has stunning views of the Great Range including the Amp on Basin. After looking at the Dixes and Ntop for the past couple of hours it was mind blowing to see the entire Great Range, Marcy, Allen, Redfield, The North River range and more from that lookout.
I thought I would be counting Blake as a bushwhack summit but after we descended into a col and climbed about 250 feet to Blake’s Summit on the trail I didn’t feel that it should count. It sure counted for Julie’s 45th in any case! As we were slogging up Colvin we met up with 2 kids who were doing a Dix Marathon. They had done the Dixes, whacked to Dial, hiked Nippletop and Colvin and now were on their way to Blake and would turn around and exit at the Ausable club. They had been at it since 3 am!
On our way past the golf course a guy came running out of his cottage and gave us each an ice cold Heineken and we spent 15 minutes talking 46 talk and getting eaten by mosquitoes before getting back to the car 15 hours after starting out.
And that’s the end of the Blake Slide Story.
