Big Slide
This hike will always be a favorite of mine, especially on perfect-weather days like this one. It was a great way to spend an afternoon!
Sean Carpenter – Photographs and Work
Personal Photography and Work
This hike will always be a favorite of mine, especially on perfect-weather days like this one. It was a great way to spend an afternoon!
Having spent a couple decades in flatland Florida, I wasn’t sure how Philip would do, but we breezed up to Cascade. The view was typically spectacular, as was the stiff breeze.
“It doesn’t have to be fun, to be fun.” — Anonymous
Seasons pass. This far north they linger a bit longer than at home, which I seem to appreciate more each year.
I realized how lucky I was for last winter, but I definitely appreciate the last four the most. It’s been a great challenge, and I’ve got a lot more winter hiking in my future. For now, I’m going to take some time and enjoy being 46er #8475W.
This winter has been no joke. Conditions are variable, there is no guarantee that any trail is broken out. Even with Joe’s experience we almost had to turn around two hikes in a row. It makes this trio all the sweeter.
In short, I obliterated my 2015, which was at that time my most prodigious year. In 2016, I roughly doubled all the hiking I had done since I started in 2009!
Sunrise comes late this far north, so starting hikes before dawn usually means cold. It was 5°F as I pulled in the lot at the Adirondack Loj. I got the front spot.
After an even one hundred summits in 2016, number 101 was short and sweet. With the rest of the US was gripped in the big freeze swooping down from the Arctic, we knew that the calm winds and sunny skies would make a great day hiking.
Not having hiked these three together (colloquially referred to as ‘HaBaSa’) since July of 2014, I wanted to reacquaint myself with them before winter.
All that melted snow had to go somewhere, and the trail was obviously the path of least resistance. There was so much water pouring down the trail that it was at points truly a stream, with little waterfall cascades and everything.
Lake Road still had a dusting of snow, and turning up the Weld Trail I realized that I probably could have brought snowshoes. There was easily 4″-8″ of snow all the way up to the junction with Sawteeth, and there was 8″-12″ up to the summit.
The route through the South Boquet River takes a meandering path, making four river crossings before leading to the base of a slide and up the north slope of Grace Peak.
We got our first hint that we were in for a treat at the initial boardwalk along the Van Hoevenberg trail. Looking off to our right, the MacIntyres sparkled.