On a beautiful day with comfortable but not too-warm temperatures, I took advantage of the generous pre-winter snowfall for a snowshoe bushwhack to a slide in a trailless drainage between Little Haystack Mountain and Mount Liberty. It was my third visit to this slide in the last two years (what can I say) so the route was familiar.
The approach to the bushwhack was the first 0.7 mile on the well-packed Falling Waters Trail.
Once across Dry Brook, I took to the woods for the mile and a half bushwhack, heading towards the mid-morning sun.
Snowshoeing conditions were excellent, with anywhere from 5 to 12 inches (depending on tree cover) of powder atop a thin crunchy base.
I remembered this stand of old sugar maples from my previous trips through here.
Respectable snow depth in the hardwoods.
A random frozen stream in the forest.
Pre-winter beauty.
An unusual growth pattern on this yellow birch.
After a long angling traverse, I climbed into the conifers, parallel to the stream that drains the slide. The stream is officially nameless, but is shown as Basin Brook on one trail map.
Careful weaving needed. Jostling a tree unleashes a refreshing snow bomb.
Bear tracks at 2900 ft. - a regular sighting on recent hikes.
Good woods here.
Time for some branch-banging.
Sweet 'shoeing.
A good foot or more on the final approach to the slide.
After a nasty steep pitch down through dense conifers, I emerged on the jumbled brook at the base of the slide.
The open runout of the slide was in sight, tantalizingly close ahead.
To get there, I had to plunge into the first spruce traps of the season.
Amazing snow depth out here in the open, in early December!
That trap was even deeper.
Heading up the low-angle lower part of the slide, which fell during the same October 1995 rainstorm that unleashed the Dogleg Slide on Mount Osceola and the prominent slide on the north side of North Twin.
Coming around the corner.
Looking up to a spine-like formation where the slide splits into north and south forks. This is the north fork.
Two Eastern white pines near the base of the slide. It's an intriguing mystery of how these were seeded here. Save for another small tree I've seen near the top of this slide, there are no other white pines within miles of here. The abundant pioneer trees on slides are pin cherry, yellow and white birch, balsam fir and red spruce. Yet I have found white pines, usually just one or two, sometimes a few more, on 52 of 81 slides I've checked. Of the 52 slides with pines, 27 have occurrences above 3,000 ft., and two above 4,000 ft. - Carter Dome's Northwest Slide at 4,250 ft. and Hancock's Arrow Slide at 4,100 ft. The dry gravelly slides are suitable habitat for this sun-loving pioneer species, but how are the seeds dispersed so far from the pine's normal range? Retired USFS forester David Govatski, an authority on White Mountains natural history, suspects that blue jays are likely the source of seeding for the higher elevation white pines, as it would be easy for them to cache seeds on the bare ground of the slides. Research has shown that they will "scatter-hoard" seeds at distances up to 2.5 miles. Stay tuned.
Another mystery: how did this solitary tamarack (larch) seed in here to eke out a living far from its normal abode?
A climb up the lower part of the slide opens a very nice view to the Kinsmans.
Closer look. South Kinsman on the left, North Kinsman on the right.
Another angle on South Kinsman, showing its massive SE ridge. There was a strange undercast between South Kinsman and distant Mount Moosilauke.
I fashioned a seat from my pack and hung out for a while in the afternoon sun.
Before heading out, I climbed a little higher on the slide. With potential avalanche danger in mind, I stayed off the steeper 30-degree slope above.
A wider view of the Kinsmans here.
Zoomed.
A splash of color from mountain ash berries.
Following my tracks back down.
Return through the spruce traps.
Looking back down the nasty pitch that provides access to the base of the slide.
Forest scene at 3000 ft.
There were a few tussles with hobblebush thickets.
Golden time of day.
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