A winter preview bushwhack to a favorite slide high on the SW slope of Mount Liberty. Snow cover was pretty consistent, ranging from a few inches around the Flume to 6-8" above 3000 ft. I bare-booted all the way, though snowshoes would have been useful on the upper reaches.
I started from the Flume Visitor Center parking lot, descending to the Flume Covered Bridge with the classic view of Mount Liberty, its slide partly revealed, rising above.
From the upper end of the network of paths around the Flume, I bushwhacked up the slope through open hardwoods to the Flume Slide Trail. There was 4-5" of mealy snow atop a spongy layer of leaf litter, making for fairly tedious going.
A wet open area in a mini-col partway up the slope.
Good hardwood whacking.
Bear tree.
A magnificent maple.
Bear tracks beside the Flume Slide Trail.
Human hikers are not the only woods travelers who use the trail.
Deer!
The trail passes a scoured-out gully at the lower end of the slide track.
At the start of the bushwhack up to the slide, I scrambled over a debris flow levee - a little ridge of boulders deposited alongside the track. These lateral moraines are found along the lower edges of many a slide.
After a brief climb through hardwoods...
...I picked up the trace of an early 1900s logging sled road that I would follow up towards the slide.
Looking like winter up here.
This is one of a network of old logging sled roads constructed on the south side of Mount Liberty, probably around 1900-1905.
Snowshoes might have been useful here.
The sled road is steeper than it looks in this photo. Hauling logs with horses down this pitch must have been quite the challenge.
I followed a branching sled road up and across towards the slide.
Upon emerging at the lower edge of the slide, I was startled by a confusion of tracks in the snow. Upon closer examination, it was clear that a bear had been wandering out on the steep, snowy swath!
Looking up the slide, I could see that the bruin had wandered down from above.
There was quite a trampling evident on a shelf near the bottom of the slide, suggesting that some kind of foraging was happening down there.
Side view of the slide, which came crashing off Mount Liberty in June 1883, during the same storm that triggered the huge slides on the west face of Mount Flume. The outflow from the Liberty slide surged through the Flume, scouring its walls and dislodging the famed suspended boulder.
The slide commands a fine view to the SW, dominated by the broad spread of Mount Moosilauke. Snow squalls were sweeping across from the west.
Kicking steps into firm crunchy snow, I paralleled the bear tracks up to a comfortable shelf for a late lunch. In summer this swath is wet, slick ledge and essentially unclimbable.
Close-up of the upper bear tracks. It wisely made switchbacks down the 30-degree snow slope.
Ice bulges guard the upper end of the slide's lower swath.
The sun emerged and cleared out the view. The North Lincoln "strip" along Route 3 is seen down in the Pemigewasset River valley.
I thought about making the steep and strenuous climb through the woods, around the ledge band, to the middle and upper parts of the slide, as I'd done on three previous visits. But the short daylight hours made the decision easy - stay here and savor the sun and views for a while before heading down.
Descending along the steep old logging sled road.
Down through the hardwoods towards the Flume.
Twilight view of Liberty and Flume from the parking lot.
The Liberty slide shows up well in
winter; perhaps the best view of it is from the parking lot of Indian
Head Resort on the west side of Route 3.
This postcard view from the Indian Head tower, probably from the 1920s, shows the main Liberty slide on the right and two tributary slides on the left. Part of a steep logging sled road can be seen to the right of the lower part of the slides.
