West Sleeper Slide: 8/27/24

Still feeling some after effects from a recent bout of Covid, I opted for a familiar, moderately strenuous trail-and-bushwhack trek to the big 2011 slide on the NE side of West Sleeper, deep in the Sabbaday Brook valley.

The three crossings of Sabbaday Brook were manageable, though I never consider them to be easy.

Into the Wilderness.

An unusual rock bridge over a small drainage.

As it heads south up the valley on an early 1900s tote road, the Sabbaday Brook Trail offers many stretches with good footing.

Just before the fourth crossing of Sabbaday Brook, the trail passes the site of the Swift River Railroad's Monahan Camp, marked by these trailside sled runners.

The old logging camp location is now a ferny hardwood glade.

Following an old logging road from the Swift River Railroad days in the early 1900s.

The bushwhack up the tributary that leads to the slide is a hobble-fest.

A lovely glade of yellow and white birch.

Continuing the hardwood and hobblebush theme.

The West Sleeper Slide carved a path of destruction for 0.15 mile downstream on this tributary of Sabbaday Brook.

After 13 years, revegetation is running rampant on the slide track. It's easier to travel in deep winter snow.

Sleeper Ridge looms ahead as the base of the slide is approached.

This debris slope was formed when the slide slammed into the tributary at a right angle.

The bank offers a great perspective on the massive slide.

A short, steep scramble over loose rock gains a shelf at the base of the main body of the slide.

 

The lower section of the wedge-shaped slide is 200 feet wide.

This was my ninth visit to this slide - perhaps a dubious record of some sort - as I have been following the process of revegetation. Soon after the fall of the slide, this deposit area on the shelf at the base began seeding in with pioneers such as pin cherry and yellow birch. Now small spruce and fir are crowding their way in.

Pearly everlasting thrives on many slides.

Last winter I came across a white pine along the edge of this slide - the first time I've found this species on one of the recent (2011 and 2017) slides. It seems it takes longer for the occasional pine to be seeded in on a slide, compared to the pin cherry, birch, spruce and fir seedlings that sprout up within a couple of years. Today this was the first of four white pines I spotted, three of them diminutive.

Striped maple (aka moosewood or moose maple) is a frequent slide colonizer.

 

Lance-leaved goldenrod is also a slide denizen.

 

I'm guessing this may be Canada Goldenrod.

The bottom pitch of the slide is very steep.

Another perspective.

Down-look from top of the first pitch.

This was the white pine I spotted poking above the snow last March. It must have had a head start on its diminutive brethren,

The best views from this slide are found on the wide lower part. I found a comfortable spot and settled in for a long break. While I was hanging out here, a hummingbird buzzed by - a first for me on a slide.

A zoomed view taking in Mount Tremont, Carter Dome (hazy due to wildfire smoke), Bartlett Haystack, the Baldfaces, ledgy Potash Mountain, Bear Mountain, pointy "South Potash," and Big Attitash

Looking up the slide. After a long rest, I decided to climb to a set of rugged ledges a bit more than halfway up the slide.

As I zig-zagged up the steep open slope, I passed a fourth recently established white pine.

Getting higher.

The ledges, which contrast with the rubbly nature of most of the slide.

Tiered.

An inviting shelf.

Nice perch to hang out in the sun for a while.

The high, lonesome ridge of East Sleeper.

North Moat in the hazy distance. Kearsarge North peeks over in back.

An intrusion of a dark gray rock contrasts with the predominant Kinsman granodiorite.

Descending the slide as fair weather clouds sail across the sky.

A Christmas tree farm in the Wilderness.

It's coming.

Looking back up the slide track to Sleeper Ridge.

Back into the embrace of the hobblebush.

Homeward bound.