Trip Report
Winter Scramble - North Slide Mountain
Great views, perfect weather, and a high snow line made for fast trail work on this solitary trip to North Slide (no other parties!). A great time to visit this area while the Sun Top trail remains sufficiently snow covered to impede wheeled traffic.
Dave Morgan
- Sat, May 13, 2023
- Winter Scramble - North Slide Mountain
- South Slide Mountain
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road rough but passable
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A gorgeous 60° day with cooling breezes from the east. The road west of the airstrip continues to amaze with world class pothole bouncing. Snow free trails until ~3900’, then intermittent snow to ~4800’. Brought but did not need crampons or snowshoes. Used this winter route to avoid the potential for cornice falls from the ridge crest (the cornices were there, but large parts of the ridge are snow free):
Heavy snow melt made for lots of water at the Doe Creek crossing, barefoot on the ascent (for a mostly dry foot day), then booted on descent (heck, they’re already wet ;):
After a tribe of goats kindly relocated we got some great views from the summit of North Slide:
Looking north along the ridge crest you can see game trails on the SE aspect of Point 5986:
A greatly appreciated day in the mountains, particularly with the much warmer lowland temperatures. A total of 10 hours (6 hours on the ascent, 4 hours on the descent including a number of significant breaks) on this ~5000’ gain/14 mile outing. Photos from this and other trips to this venue can be seen here.