Mountain Wandering: Goose Eye Slide

On a fine early summer day I made the long drive to the Bethel, Maine area and 9.5 miles out Sunday River Road to the remote trailhead for the Wright Trail, the scenic eastern route up Goose Eye Mountain. I wanted to re-visit the lower half of the trail along Goose Eye Brook and then bushwhack onto the ledgy slide on the north face of Goose Eye Mountain's eastern ridge (which Wright Trail traverses).

The trailhead kiosk for Wright Trail.

AMC has recently entered into a maintenance agreement with the Maine Bureau of Public Lands for several trails.

Pleasant woods walking on the lower section of Wright Trail.

The original first half-mile of the trail followed closely along Goose Eye Brook and rejoins the current route at 0.5 mi. This section is now overgrown and hard to follow but does receive some use as it passes several interesting features along the brook.

A short distance farther a side path leads to this view of a nice cascade.

Ledges and pools abound along Goose Eye Brook.

This one is a beauty.

Surging stream.

Yet another pool.

A neat spot where the trail goes out onto brookbed ledges for 50 yards.

After a long moderate climb away from the brook, the trail returns to it at 2.5 miles and makes a potentially confusing crossing to begin the climb up onto the eastern ridge. To make the crossing you climb up this sloping ledge and make a sharp left into the woods at a blazed tree.

At this crossing a side path on the right leads to a designated tentsite.

When Wright Trail was opened in the 1990s, it was a loop, with the north branch climbing steeply up through the glacial cirque on the east side of Goose Eye and the south branch ascending the east ridge. About 15 years ago the north branch, which climbed through some sketchy terrain on the cirque headwall, was abandoned due to erosion and safety concerns. When I climbed that route while it was open, I noted that it passed along the base of a large slab on he south side of the cirque - which happens to be the lower end of the slide I wanted to check out on this return visit. So I figured if I could follow the abandoned trail, more or less, it would lead me to the slide. I was indeed able to follow it most of the time, though it was very obscure and overgrown much of the way. Early on it made two crossings of Goose Eye Brook.

Some moss-covered rock steps assured me that I was on the old route.

Parts of it were basically a bushwhack.

The route ascended through beautiful hardwood forest on the north side of the valley.

It then skirted along the base of some large rock slabs. A short, careful scramble led to a view of the cirque headwall and a good look at the slide.

This slide is 500 ft. long and is all steep ledge slab, with a slope of 38 to 39 degrees. In looking at old aerial photos, it appears it may have fallen in the 1970s.

Looking up at more ledge slabs along the old route.

Close-up of a slab on the cirque headwall.

I descended to the floor of the valley, losing the old trail route, and then bushwhacked up to the base of the slide, where I could see the old trail footway again.

I bushwhacked steeply up through the woods and then across the slope towards the slide through very dense scrubby growth. Looking back...

...and ahead.

Views to the many rock faces on the north wall of the cirque...

...and up to the headwall.

I emerged onto a little shelf of sorts between the lower slab of the slide and the main swath looming above. The rock was pretty grippy where dry and I scrambled a little way up, but I would want approach shoes to ascend all the way. The bushwhack from the top of the slide up to the ridge would be formidable.

I found a safe spot to hang out and enjoy the view (despite swarming black flies) down the Goose Eye Brook valley to Baldpate Mountain, Slide Mountain (no slides visible on it at present) and the beautiful ledgy cone of Sunday River Whitecap. That is Grafton Loop Trail territory.

Slide and Sunday River Whitecap, zoomed.

Looking across to the cirque headwall. I saw no white pines on this slide, but there are numerous tamaracks, including the one seen on the right in this photo. Tamaracks in general are less frequent denizens on White Mountain slides.