blacknblue
Active member
What a fantastic weather day for the Tripyramids! It was one of those days when everything falls into place very nicely. The views were tremendous, the weather accommodating, and overall experience delightful.
I talked The Lovely into trying the North Slide/South Slide loop over the Tri's. She was hesitant above the North Slide, but I thought it would be fun. I had never done it either, b/c I always get rained on during previous opportunities. But, it is our experience that NE trails are seldom as scary as advertised.
The Lovely and I left the Upper Valley and got to Waterville Valley by 9:15ish. The Osceolas were looking fantastic! We started hiking around 9:30, just before a group of six with teenagers was starting. The Livermore Trail was mellow and quiet. When we got to the base of the North Slide, around 10:45, we heard loud thumping and shook the ground, like a bunch of moose, but then it ended abruptly. We're still not sure what it was, but it was weird. Wrong sound for rockfall and wrong pattern for hooves.
Anyway, the hardest part of the North Slide is at the bottom. One ledge in particularly lacked decent handholds and was a little dodgy, but not a big deal if you trust friction. I would not want to go down this slide, though, especially in wet weather. Then there is a long section and rough rock slabs to ascend, with increasing views. There are a couple of sections that are a bit slippery, but we stayed mostly to the left and were okay. Once the slide really widens, the views increase from Tecumseh/WV to Carrigain and even the Prezzies. The slide becomes more loose scree for a while, before turning back to slab. When the slide splits into two arms, we bore left, thinking the trail turn-off is on the left, but when the slide petered out, we realized the right arm went higher, so we went over there and quickly found some cairns. The turn-off is obvious at a huge cairn about 15-20 before the top of the slide. We got there around 12:00.
We stopped for about five minutes on North Tri because the bugs were bad. Getting to Middle Tri is pretty easy overall, and the views are better on Middle Tri. Over to South Tri has some interesting moves, but overall not bad and we headed down to the South Slide, after passing three ladies who had taken a wrong turn, coming up the wrong slide (their plan B took them down Scaur Ridge Trail). The South Slide has two open sections, we a ledgy traverse between them, and is not as long as the North Slide.
On the hike back to the Livermore Trail, we found an exquisite waterfall that leads into a natural slide and into a 3-4-foot-deep pool. We shuffled down the bank and enjoyed ourselves for a while. A thunderstorm got us pretty wet on the hike out, but it felt good and we did not even bother to put on rain gear.
We were back to the parking lot by 3:30 -- six hours total for the eleven-mile loop(book time is seven). We saw 2 people on North Tri's summit, 1 guy on Middle Tri, 3 ladies near South Tri, 4 guys on the South Slide, and 3 mountain bikers on the Livermore Trail. Not bad for a beautiful Saturday afternoon in June!
(I'll try to post pics once I get The Lovely's camera.)
I talked The Lovely into trying the North Slide/South Slide loop over the Tri's. She was hesitant above the North Slide, but I thought it would be fun. I had never done it either, b/c I always get rained on during previous opportunities. But, it is our experience that NE trails are seldom as scary as advertised.
The Lovely and I left the Upper Valley and got to Waterville Valley by 9:15ish. The Osceolas were looking fantastic! We started hiking around 9:30, just before a group of six with teenagers was starting. The Livermore Trail was mellow and quiet. When we got to the base of the North Slide, around 10:45, we heard loud thumping and shook the ground, like a bunch of moose, but then it ended abruptly. We're still not sure what it was, but it was weird. Wrong sound for rockfall and wrong pattern for hooves.
Anyway, the hardest part of the North Slide is at the bottom. One ledge in particularly lacked decent handholds and was a little dodgy, but not a big deal if you trust friction. I would not want to go down this slide, though, especially in wet weather. Then there is a long section and rough rock slabs to ascend, with increasing views. There are a couple of sections that are a bit slippery, but we stayed mostly to the left and were okay. Once the slide really widens, the views increase from Tecumseh/WV to Carrigain and even the Prezzies. The slide becomes more loose scree for a while, before turning back to slab. When the slide splits into two arms, we bore left, thinking the trail turn-off is on the left, but when the slide petered out, we realized the right arm went higher, so we went over there and quickly found some cairns. The turn-off is obvious at a huge cairn about 15-20 before the top of the slide. We got there around 12:00.
We stopped for about five minutes on North Tri because the bugs were bad. Getting to Middle Tri is pretty easy overall, and the views are better on Middle Tri. Over to South Tri has some interesting moves, but overall not bad and we headed down to the South Slide, after passing three ladies who had taken a wrong turn, coming up the wrong slide (their plan B took them down Scaur Ridge Trail). The South Slide has two open sections, we a ledgy traverse between them, and is not as long as the North Slide.
On the hike back to the Livermore Trail, we found an exquisite waterfall that leads into a natural slide and into a 3-4-foot-deep pool. We shuffled down the bank and enjoyed ourselves for a while. A thunderstorm got us pretty wet on the hike out, but it felt good and we did not even bother to put on rain gear.
We were back to the parking lot by 3:30 -- six hours total for the eleven-mile loop(book time is seven). We saw 2 people on North Tri's summit, 1 guy on Middle Tri, 3 ladies near South Tri, 4 guys on the South Slide, and 3 mountain bikers on the Livermore Trail. Not bad for a beautiful Saturday afternoon in June!
(I'll try to post pics once I get The Lovely's camera.)
