Tripyramid South Slides: 6/13/24

On a warm sunny day during Laconia Motorcycle Week, I headed out to a favorite area in the Waterville Valley backcountry, where I knew I could get away from the constant distant rumble of bikes along the major highways. It was a quiet day out Livermore/Tripyramid way, with only two hikers, two mountain bikers, and two dog walkers seen on a 10-mile hike.

White Cascade on Slide Brook was more subdued than it was earlier in the spring, but still had a respectable flow.

Deep woods walking on the Livermore Trail.

Across Avalanche Brook and into the Wilderness on the south end of the Mount Tripyramid Trail.

Gateway to the upper Slide Brook valley.

Along the way I admired the blowdown-clearing axe work of the Trail Fixing Collective, who removed blowdowns from all the WVAIA trails in late May. This one was a trail-blocking monster.

 

Rest spot on Slide Brook.

A big old sugar maple.

A peek at Black Cascade through the trees.

More good axe work by the Trail Fixing Collective.

Mellow walking through a deep tunnel of green.

Up around 2700 ft. I did a bit of off-trail wandering through gorgeous hardwood glades.

Trailside sugar maples at 2900 ft., pretty high up for hardwoods.

From the point where the Mount Tripyramid Trail reaches the bottom of the 1869 South Slide, which it follows steeply up towards the junction with the Kate Sleeper Trail and the summit of South Tripyramid beyond, I headed into the woods towards the nearby 2011 South Slide.

Along the way I skirted the lowest remnant of the 1885 South Slide, the easternmost of the three South Slides.

Emerging at the bottom of the 2011 South Slide, which was triggered by Tropical Storm Irene. I wanted to scan this slide closely to see if any white pines had taken seed here yet. I had not seen a white pine on any 2011/Irene slide until I spotted a seedling on the West Sleeper NE Slide last winter. It seems to take a few years for white pines to appear on a slide, as opposed to the fairly rapid revegetation by yellow and white birch, pin cherry, red spruce, balsam fir and other pioneer species.

Pin cherry, a fast-growing, short-lived pioneer.

Many diminutive red spruces have populated the slide.

The 2011 South Slide is a mix of ledge, broken rock and gravel.

This appears to be some kind of willow, species uncertain. In his 1958 dissertation, Landslides and Their Revegetation in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, researcher Edward Flaccus found at least one species of willow on 17 of the 22 slides he surveyed.

A bit more than halfway up the slide, I found it: a single white pine seedling sprouting from the gravel. Success!

I believe this is mountain alder, found on 9 of 22 slides by Flaccus.

The ledges on the slide display a number of tan-colored aplite dikes - intrusions of fine-grained granite that cut across the monzonite bedrock.

Looking down the 2011 South Slide, with Sandwich Dome in the distance.

A short, thick bushwhack across the slope brought me to a secondary track of the 1869 South Slide.

This is one of the few spots on the South Slides where you can see Mt. Tecumseh and Mt. Osceola, with Mt. Moosilauke in the distance between them.

Ascending the secondary track.

At 3400 ft., this is the highest white pine I've found on the older (1869 and 1885) South Slides.

View from the pine.

Back to the Mount Tripyramid Trail at the top of the lower open section of the 1869 slide. Nice view of Sandwich Dome and the remote Lost Pass area.

This ledge scramble at 3550 ft. is the trickiest spot on the trail up the 1869 South Slide, where it briefly becomes more like the slabby North Slide,

After a steep, winding climb through scrub, breaking into the open on the upper open section of the 1869 slide.

A steep climb up broken chunks of rock.

Looking down and out, with a distant view to Vermont.

I cut across on the Kate Sleeper Trail to the open upper section of the 1885 South Slide, which has an especially fine view of Sandwich Dome and Lost Pass.

A long, trailless spur descends off East Sleeper towards Lost Pass. Mt. Israel pokes up behind the Pass.

Zoom on Lost Pass, so named in the early 1900s by Waterville Valley notable and AMC trail-builder Nathaniel Goodrich after the second of two historic paths through this gap was abandoned.

I spent a quiet hour up here soaking it in.

Side view of 1885 South Slide.

Back at the Kate Sleeper/Mount Tripyramid Trail junction.

Evening light while slowly descending the lower part of the 1869 slide.

This aspen is a survivor.

Late sun in the hardwoods.

Off-trail, a ferny glade beside Slide Brook.

Profile of South Tripyramid from the Depot Camp clearing on Livermore Trail.