Guinness
Active member
ALGonquin Bob and I departed the Buffalo area at midnight on Thursday to visit Big Slide on Friday (1/11/2008). We knew it would be a wet day as it rained the entire 6.5 hours drive. We took turns driving while the passenger attempted to get some sleep. As we made our way up the Northway it started to sleet and ice covered everything.
We turned off Route 73 in Keene Valley to drive up into the Garden Parking lot. Our first attempt up the road to the Garden failed about halfway up. The car had nothing to grip and stopped all forward progress. However, luck was on our side. A few minutes later a city plow came through. We waited for the plow to return from the top dropping sand the full length of the road. We then drove up to the start of the Garden entrance. Increased our speed as we left the sanded road and just made it over the hump to get into the Garden parking.
By now we were about 45 minutes after our original start time goal. I started up the trail a few minutes after 8:00 while Bob prepared his gear and boiled water. As I have not hiked since July, I expected my pace would be slow as I gasped for the fresh mountain air. I made it up the first set of ledges at 0.8 and there I waited a few minutes while Bob made his way up to join me. All this time the rain continued to fall.
Together we continued on toward the first Brother stopping at the natural shelter for some nutrition. The rain caused the top surface of everything to be covered with a thick coating of ice. While this was good for the trail, it was not good for the rock ledges and care was taken not to slip.
The previous days have been warm and not too kind to the trails. There were many snowshoe postholes all along the route. Some poor hiker before us must have punched through a hundred times. Imagine the trail condition if someone attempted this in bare boots!
Soon we were at the junction with the trail leading up from JBL. We started up the last steep section to the summit. The snow level was down far enough to expose the ladder with its many snowshoe-grabbing nails. Care was taken to get above this section. In some areas I kicked in and the underlying surface was wet, loose slush, not a very good grip. We made our way to the last big step, a 4-foot ledge that to our surprise was fully covered in snow pack. We walked onto the summit, shook hands and left. The winds were strong enough to drive the rain into our faces with biting cold results as Mother Nature said, “Get off my summit”.
Heading back down I felt uncomfortable attempting to glissade. The conditions were extremely fast and those nails kept me on my feet. Back at the trail junction, we decided to go down the trail toward JBL instead of dealing with the Brothers and the ice slick conditions. The trail was open flowing water in many sections causing us to straddle or circumnavigate the trail many times.
Due to the runoff, Slide Mountain Brook was flowing with raging water. This presented us with a challenge as there are 6 crossings going down this route. The crossings ranged between 10 to 20 feet wide and the best you could hope for was a couple of exposed rocks to rock hop. The reality was you have to plunge your showshoe / boot into 2-4 inches of water splashing up your leg to reach a rock to stand on. Eventually my Gore-Tex boots gave up and took on water. The best part of the ascent came at 3:00 p.m. when the rains stopped!
After 3 crossings we met a couple heading up. The first people we saw all day. After exchanging pleasantries we continued down. Soon were at the Phelps trail and turned left for the Garden. Almost immediately we had to turn off the main trail and use the high water bridge. The rest of the trip back to the garden was just slow going as we crossed many swollen brooks and streams. Back at the car we went off to the Ark Tail Motel where we were staying for the evening. Changed and went to the brewpub for some good food and a couple of Ubu’s. All is well. Back home by 4:30 on Saturday to watch my home team, The Packers win to move to the championship game.
Now, some trip reports are not complete without some ranting. This is one of those. While on the Phelps trail, we passed 12 hikers heading in. Only 1 had snowshoes on. The rest were bare booting and post-holing the full 3.5 miles. This makes no sense to me as they were leaving hundreds of postholes, some a few inches deep and some almost knee deep. Dah????? This caused us to have to walk staring at the trail to pick the next foot placement. Near the large boulders I looked up and my snowshoe caught the side of a posthole and I almost went down. I can not imagine what they are thinking. It is a lot harder to hike while slipping, sliding and creating postholes. Did I say Dah, I guess I will say it again…Dah. When the temperatures drop this week, that trail will harden and that can be dangerous. There is no consideration to other hikers that follow. Yes it is a regulation to have snowshoes on all the time and some people think “I don’t need no stinkin’ regulations”, but it should be common sense. I guess I will leave it at that.
We turned off Route 73 in Keene Valley to drive up into the Garden Parking lot. Our first attempt up the road to the Garden failed about halfway up. The car had nothing to grip and stopped all forward progress. However, luck was on our side. A few minutes later a city plow came through. We waited for the plow to return from the top dropping sand the full length of the road. We then drove up to the start of the Garden entrance. Increased our speed as we left the sanded road and just made it over the hump to get into the Garden parking.
By now we were about 45 minutes after our original start time goal. I started up the trail a few minutes after 8:00 while Bob prepared his gear and boiled water. As I have not hiked since July, I expected my pace would be slow as I gasped for the fresh mountain air. I made it up the first set of ledges at 0.8 and there I waited a few minutes while Bob made his way up to join me. All this time the rain continued to fall.
Together we continued on toward the first Brother stopping at the natural shelter for some nutrition. The rain caused the top surface of everything to be covered with a thick coating of ice. While this was good for the trail, it was not good for the rock ledges and care was taken not to slip.
The previous days have been warm and not too kind to the trails. There were many snowshoe postholes all along the route. Some poor hiker before us must have punched through a hundred times. Imagine the trail condition if someone attempted this in bare boots!
Soon we were at the junction with the trail leading up from JBL. We started up the last steep section to the summit. The snow level was down far enough to expose the ladder with its many snowshoe-grabbing nails. Care was taken to get above this section. In some areas I kicked in and the underlying surface was wet, loose slush, not a very good grip. We made our way to the last big step, a 4-foot ledge that to our surprise was fully covered in snow pack. We walked onto the summit, shook hands and left. The winds were strong enough to drive the rain into our faces with biting cold results as Mother Nature said, “Get off my summit”.
Heading back down I felt uncomfortable attempting to glissade. The conditions were extremely fast and those nails kept me on my feet. Back at the trail junction, we decided to go down the trail toward JBL instead of dealing with the Brothers and the ice slick conditions. The trail was open flowing water in many sections causing us to straddle or circumnavigate the trail many times.
Due to the runoff, Slide Mountain Brook was flowing with raging water. This presented us with a challenge as there are 6 crossings going down this route. The crossings ranged between 10 to 20 feet wide and the best you could hope for was a couple of exposed rocks to rock hop. The reality was you have to plunge your showshoe / boot into 2-4 inches of water splashing up your leg to reach a rock to stand on. Eventually my Gore-Tex boots gave up and took on water. The best part of the ascent came at 3:00 p.m. when the rains stopped!
After 3 crossings we met a couple heading up. The first people we saw all day. After exchanging pleasantries we continued down. Soon were at the Phelps trail and turned left for the Garden. Almost immediately we had to turn off the main trail and use the high water bridge. The rest of the trip back to the garden was just slow going as we crossed many swollen brooks and streams. Back at the car we went off to the Ark Tail Motel where we were staying for the evening. Changed and went to the brewpub for some good food and a couple of Ubu’s. All is well. Back home by 4:30 on Saturday to watch my home team, The Packers win to move to the championship game.
Now, some trip reports are not complete without some ranting. This is one of those. While on the Phelps trail, we passed 12 hikers heading in. Only 1 had snowshoes on. The rest were bare booting and post-holing the full 3.5 miles. This makes no sense to me as they were leaving hundreds of postholes, some a few inches deep and some almost knee deep. Dah????? This caused us to have to walk staring at the trail to pick the next foot placement. Near the large boulders I looked up and my snowshoe caught the side of a posthole and I almost went down. I can not imagine what they are thinking. It is a lot harder to hike while slipping, sliding and creating postholes. Did I say Dah, I guess I will say it again…Dah. When the temperatures drop this week, that trail will harden and that can be dangerous. There is no consideration to other hikers that follow. Yes it is a regulation to have snowshoes on all the time and some people think “I don’t need no stinkin’ regulations”, but it should be common sense. I guess I will leave it at that.
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. So this is round 4 your working on?
