In the wake of the Thanksgiving snowfall, I headed up to the SW ridge of Mount Liberty for my first snowshoe bushwhack of the season. The attractions of this route included expansive hardwood forests at lower elevations, gorgeous birch glades higher up, and an old slide track that would be more accessible when its wet ledge slabs were blanketed in snow. I was able to visit all these features, but the trek was a little more than I bargained for, leading to a late (6:00 pm) exit.
I approached via the wide paths that lead up past The Flume, pausing to admire this view of Flume Brook.
Ice formation was in its early stages in The Flume.
I paid a brief visit to the SW-facing viewpoint along the path above The Flume.
At the high point of the Flume path I exchanged spikes for snowshoes and launched a 0.6 mile bushwhack up the slope to meet the Flume Slide Trail, making the first tracks of the season in 6-10" of powder.
Open hardwoods reign on this slope.
Though we had only 3 inches in Lincoln, the Thanksgiving storm was more generous at higher elevations.
Slowly weaving upward.
A bear feeding nest high in a beech tree.
Another bear tree.
Some big sugar maples up here.
I hopped onto the Flume Slide Trail for a quarter-mile transfer to the main bushwhack event.
The woods became snowier as I ascended the lower part of Liberty's broad SW ridge.
I remembered this battered but still magnificent yellow birch from a spring trip up here two years ago.
Every limb had its mantle of snow.
The conifers were resplendent in their winter cloaks.
Looks like I'll be pushing through some snow-laden softwoods here.
Snow getting deeper. Slow and steady wins the day.
Climbing into the birch glades higher up the ridge.
The first time I visited these glades it was 85 degrees on a May day before the leaves came out, making it a hot, steep climb.
The conditions today were a bit different.
For a short distance I followed an early 1900s logging tote road up and across the slope.
These glades are the legacy of a 1908 forest fire that seared this slope.
Oh my.
This slope would be carpeted with ferns in summer.
Can't get enough of these glades! Elevation here is 3150 ft.
It had taken a long time to break trail up to here from the Flume Slide Trail, and if I wanted to visit the slide I now had to make a strenuous sidehill traverse across the steep slope.
After a slow push through some gnarly spruce-thick terrain with plenty of blowdown, I realized that I had traversed to a point above the top of the old slide track. I then had to slither down a steep pitch to emerge at the upper end of the slide. Unfortunately clouds and flurries had obscured the southerly views.
Here is the view on a day in May.
But there was plenty of beauty to be seen around the edges of the slide.
Looking down the partly overgrown track. This fairly short slide was one of two western tributaries to the main SW Slide on Mount Liberty, which came surging down during a June 1883 downpour and swept the famous suspended boulder out of The Flume.
I descended carefully down the slide track, skirting potentially sketchy spots in the woods.
A snowy highway through the forest.
Opening up for more fuzzy views.
My favorite scene from the day.
Parting shot at the bottom of the open swath. From here, starting after 3:00 pm,. I had to break out a new route to get back down and across the slope. After many refreshing showers from snow-burdened conifers, and much maneuvering over and around blowdown, I emerged back into open woods. Far down the ridge I finally linked up with my upbound tracks. Whew!
I reached the Flume Slide Trail at 4:40, changed into dry shirt, hat and gloves, and made a leisurely descent from there by headlamp, following my tracks through the woods back to the path above The Flume. It was a memorable start to the winter season.
