2024: The Year in Landslides

A retrospective on landslide exploring in 2024, with one slide photo for each month. For a thorough history and documentation of White Mountain slides, see our Google doc, Landslides of the White Mountains (always a work in progress) here.

January: Making tracks on the western of the two Northwest Slides on Scar Ridge. These slides are very old, dating back at least to the 1870s when they were noted by early geologists and AMC explorers.

 

 

 

February: View out to Peak Above the Nubble and beyond from the North Slide of North Twin Mountain, which fell in October 1995 along the track of an old largely revegetated slide. As I was snowshoeing partway up the slide I heard voices below, and before long brothers and avid backcountry skiers Connor and Colby O'Brien climbed past me en route to the top of the slide for a long run down.

 

March: My seventh (!) visit to the big Northeast Slide on West Sleeper, which fell during Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. Located deep in the Sabbaday Brook valley, it is one of the more impressive swaths in the Whites.

April: A repeat visit to the short, slabby slide on the steep south face of Smarts Mountain, which may have fallen during the big November 1927 rainstorm. The spur known as Lambert Ridge, traversed by the Appalachian Trail, is seen on the right.

 

May: Relaxing on the remnants of an old slide on the headwall of Avalanche Ravine, en route to North Tripyramid, with the Osceolas and Mount Moosilauke seen in the distance. This was one of several slides in Avalanche Ravine that fell in the same storm that triggered Tripyramid's huge North Slide on August 13, 1885.

June: Looking out from the big North Slide in Mount Moosilauke's aptly-named Slide Ravine, which likely came down in the late 1950s. Part of the largest slide on the ravine's southeast wall can be seen on the left. Smarts Mountain and Mount Cube are visible in the distance.

July: The view from "Little Arrow Slide," a smaller slide located just to the west of Mount Hancock's well-known Arrow Slide. The Osceolas and Scar Ridge sprawl in the distance.

August: An unusual view of King Ravine on Mount Adams from a steep ledge located on the track of a huge slide that fell on the west wall of the ravine during Hurricane Carol in 1954. The track of this slide - which was for a short time used by RMC crew members as an alternate route to Crag Camp - is now almost completely revegetated except for a few jutting outcrops.

September: A six-mile approach, including a long bushwhack up a valley, was required to reach the massive East Slides of Giant Mountain in the Adirondacks. From north to south these slides are a half-mile across. The ascent to the top of the slides requires technical climbing over a very steep ledge barrier.

 

 

October: Another long bushwhack, up the Hellgate Brook valley, brought me for a third visit to the big Guitar Slide on the south face of West Bond, with its unsurpassed view of Bondcliff.  The widest of the six slides on this slope, it probably fell either during the November 1927 storm or the September 1938 hurricane.

 

November: This largely hidden two-pronged slide came crashing down in a remote valley between Mount Liberty and Little Haystack Mountain during the October 1995 rainstorm. It offers one of the best views I've seen of North and South Kinsman and their adjacent ridges.

December: This snowy corridor is the track of a western tributary slide to the large Southwest Slide on Mount Liberty, which, along with the great West Slides on Mount Flume, was unleashed by a storm in June 1883. The Southwest Slide was notable for sweeping the suspended boulder out of its perch between the walls of The Flume.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for the New Year!