Neil
Well-known member
- Joined
- Apr 26, 2004
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This is an easy, but potentially difficult slide, depending on the choices you make. I’m surprised this easy to get to slide is so obscure. From car to slide base it’s a mere 45 minutes along an easy trail. Then it’s another very agreeable 30 minutes to the top.
Park at Monument Falls and cross the highway. The correct entrance is 40 feet to the LEFT of a spot directly across from the monument stones. If you aren’t on an obvious herd trail on an old woods road right away either turn around and try again or do what I did. (Ie. Bushwhack around for 10-15 minutes to the herd trail).
30 minutes of easy walking through a magnificent mixed forest of Sugar Maples, Red Spruce, Pines, Yellow Birch and other trees brings you to the open drainage that leads to the slide. (I saw a bear just 15 feet away here but somehow he didn’t see me.) Climb up along the left bank of the creek and make your way for 15 minutes to the hulking, brooding headwall that marks the slide’s base. I ascended to the left up a crack that had plenty of big, comforting holds. The angle was about 45 degrees so this section, although visually intimidating, is quickly and easily put behind you. From here the mountain is paved for your convenience. Ascend as you wish taking note of the hardwoods that line this low elevation slide. (Take note of all the Balsams that are opportunistically springing up along the sun exposed edges of the slide.)
Near the top things get interesting. The last section is very steep. I was wearing an old pair of boots whose tread is worn smooth and I had a lot of trouble climbing these final 50 or 60 vertical feet. At one really steep part I gripped the lip of a raised slab that ran parallel to the fall line and struggled up to a point where I didn’t feel safe anymore and very gingerly down-climbed to where I bailed to the left. Here I pulled myself up using trees for about 10 of the toughest vertical feet. Going down would have been a snap had I thought to bring my 50-foot length of webbing but as it was; I descended that tough section in the trees to the right (as descending).
It only took 15 minutes to get to the base by staying to the right and plunge-stepping in the glacial till that runs almost all the way down. At the headwall I entered the woods to the right and followed a well-defined herd trail (freshly sawn small trees = skiers?) to the creek.
Pictures.
Park at Monument Falls and cross the highway. The correct entrance is 40 feet to the LEFT of a spot directly across from the monument stones. If you aren’t on an obvious herd trail on an old woods road right away either turn around and try again or do what I did. (Ie. Bushwhack around for 10-15 minutes to the herd trail).
30 minutes of easy walking through a magnificent mixed forest of Sugar Maples, Red Spruce, Pines, Yellow Birch and other trees brings you to the open drainage that leads to the slide. (I saw a bear just 15 feet away here but somehow he didn’t see me.) Climb up along the left bank of the creek and make your way for 15 minutes to the hulking, brooding headwall that marks the slide’s base. I ascended to the left up a crack that had plenty of big, comforting holds. The angle was about 45 degrees so this section, although visually intimidating, is quickly and easily put behind you. From here the mountain is paved for your convenience. Ascend as you wish taking note of the hardwoods that line this low elevation slide. (Take note of all the Balsams that are opportunistically springing up along the sun exposed edges of the slide.)
Near the top things get interesting. The last section is very steep. I was wearing an old pair of boots whose tread is worn smooth and I had a lot of trouble climbing these final 50 or 60 vertical feet. At one really steep part I gripped the lip of a raised slab that ran parallel to the fall line and struggled up to a point where I didn’t feel safe anymore and very gingerly down-climbed to where I bailed to the left. Here I pulled myself up using trees for about 10 of the toughest vertical feet. Going down would have been a snap had I thought to bring my 50-foot length of webbing but as it was; I descended that tough section in the trees to the right (as descending).
It only took 15 minutes to get to the base by staying to the right and plunge-stepping in the glacial till that runs almost all the way down. At the headwall I entered the woods to the right and followed a well-defined herd trail (freshly sawn small trees = skiers?) to the creek.
Pictures.
