A gorgeous sunny, breezy spring afternoon and evening for a ramble into Tunnel Brook Notch, between Mount Moosilauke and Mount Clough, with visits to several beaver ponds and two slides.
I reached the trailhead after a 0.4 mile walk from High St. (in Glencliff) up Long Pond Rd.
Cascade on Jeffers Brook, the first of four brook crossings along the south section of Tunnel Brook Trail. I brought my Crocs, but all the crossings were rock-hoppable with a few long steps.
Signs of spring: yellow violet flowers and trout lily leaves.
Slide Brook flows down through open hardwoods.
The Tunnel Brook Trail follows an old roadbed on an easy to moderate climb up to the notch.
Crossing the broad, gentle height-of-land.
The shore of Mud Pond, the largest and southernmost of the chain of eight beaver ponds in the notch, provides a fine view up to the ridge and South Peak of Mount Moosilauke rising above aptly-named Slide Ravine.
Land of the lingering snow - this was the only significant patch seen on the hike.
A watery view north into the notch.
The wind blows fiercely through this "tunnel" in the mountains.
Nice hardwood forest on the east side of the pond.
Following the Tunnel Brook Trail north past more ponds.
Looking south over Pond #6.
Near here I headed off-trail towards the second (counting from the south) of nine slides on the steep east face of Mount Clough, most of which fell in 1927 and 1942.
Looking "slidey."
Breaking into the open on the gravelly lower part of Slide #2, with a view up to South Peak.
A red pine, which I have found far less frequently on slides than white pine.
Peering down to the tawny fringe of Mud Pond.
Slide Ravine slides and South Peak.
For years I've been eyeing this cliff on the lower slope of Moosilauke. One of these days.
I passed on making the very steep and rough whack to the upper ledgy swath of Slide #2. Instead, I descended back to the trail, followed it north, then whacked upslope to one of three gravel swaths at the lower end of Slide #4.
I had hoped to scramble partway up the ledges on this, the tallest of the Clough slides. But the slabs were mostly soaking wet.
I did get a little way up on some dry ledge along the south edge.
To the north I could see the ridge followed by the Benton Trail.
Looking down.
The meeting place of ledge and gravel.
Late afternoon sun on the gravel spine.
Another South Peak vista.
A different angle on the ledge and gravel contact point.
Looking up at the impressive upper slabs on Slide #4. With a pitch of ~40 degrees, this is one of the steepest slide sections in the Whites.
A debris flow levee - a trail of boulders deposited along the edge of the lower slide track.
Back down on the trail, I continued north through the notch to see the rest of the ponds and more of the Clough slides. Here Tunnel Brook meanders through a meadow at a spot where the trail crosses the stream.
Pond #4 is currently a mud flat. Slide #5, the widest of the Clough slides, rises above.
Cairns mark a passage through a spruce grove.
From the edge of Pond #1 (the northernmost), a look across at Slide #5 on the left, Slide #6 in the middle, and Slide #8 at upper right.
The work of an ambitious beaver.
Scene at Pond #6.
Evening at Mud Pond.
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