I was up the Coe slide twice, and I don’t remember it being particularly slick — but I’m not doubting anyone’s description of it as being slippery! My memory of it is that the rocks we stepped were unstable, sinking into the ground, as though the hillside was on the verge of sloughing off. These climbs were in 1996 and ’97, and both times we stayed over to the left, more in the brush than out on the bare rock.
The first time, my son was five years old and we made it to the top of the slide, but the trail crossed the stream from left to right, and it was icy and the ice was breaking off and sliding down the rocks, and the ledge we would have had to walk on looked too narrow and it just seemed too risky to take a little kid on, so we bailed on continuing and went back down, staying on the same side all the way down. Susan and I returned a year later and successfully made it, but I was pretty nervous walking across the stream at the top, although it wasn’t icy that time. It was really windy that day. We later learned that Katahdin was closed because the wind was gusting 80 miles per hour. The next day we climbed Katahdin and there were several dozen Appalachian Trail through-hikers on top. They must have been stacking up at Katahdin Stream for days.
