Thursday, February 13, 2025

Mount Liberty: 2/12/25


After doing a lot of trail breaking both on and off the trail over the last few weeks, I was ready for a hike on a packed trail. With a forecast for moderate winter temperatures and light winds, I decided it would be a good day to climb Mount Liberty, one of my favorite viewpoints in the Whites. There were several cars parked at the northbound Basin parking lot, and snowshoe tracks led onto the snowmobile-groomed bike path. The promise of an excellent packed powder snowshoe track was fulfilled as I turned onto the unofficial connecting path and then the Liberty Spring Trail.






Nobody had been on the Flume Slide Trail since the last snowfall.


 

The next mile of Liberty Spring Trail is a pleasant meander through hardwood forest at easy to moderate grades.



The one significant brook crossing had a solid snow bridge.



At ~2,500 ft. the trail swings right into a darker conifer and birch forest to commence a long and relentless climb to the Franconia Ridge Trail on the ridgecrest.



This stretch of trail, which has been called "soul-crushing," rises 1,700 ft. in 1.3 miles. Televators prove their worth on this climb.



The open woods beside the trail were inviting, but deep soft snow would mean arduous bushwhacking.



Well up on the climb I ran into "Postal Patty," a remarkable hiker who is a two-time Grid finisher. She was descending after having climbed both Liberty and Flume. She reported that the summit of Liberty was socked in when she was up there.



The snow is really piling up in the mountains.



Winter beauty around every bend.



Always happy to reach this landmark. Only 400 ft. of elevation left to reach the ridge.




But that last bit is a stiff climb.



There's the top!



Looks like a new post for the trail sign at the junction.



A lovely ramble through fir woods along the ridge.



Tunneling.



Blue sky, and summit in the clear!




Winter at its best.



Climbing to the sun.



First views north along the range, with Mount Garfield in the distance.



East across the Pemigewasset Wilderness to the dark, lurking mass of Owl's Head and the snow-caked Twin-Bond Range.




 
,Zoom on Mount Guyot and the Bonds.
 


Along the little ledgy ridge approaching the classic crags of Liberty.



Close-up.



Side view.



Distant Mt. Cabot and Mt. Waumbek are outlined in white between Mt. Garfield and North Twin.




From the summit, looking towards Cannon. Part of Lonesome Lake can be seen under the Cannon Balls.


 

A great perspective looking up the long East Branch valley to the farther reaches of the Pemi Wilderness, out by Mt. Carrigain and the Nancy Range.




Zoomed in a bit.


 

One of the great sights from Mt. Liberty is the slide-raked face of Mt. Flume, with the Sandwich Range and the Osceolas beyond.



Summit rocks.



 Nice light on the Twin-Bond Range. The Presidentials remained smothered in cloud beyond.

 


 

Mt. Guyot and the slides in the Redrock Brook cirques. At least twenty slides can be spotted from the summit of Liberty.



The Bonds, featuring the creased crags of Bondcliff. The Guitar Slide can be seen under Mt. Bond.




Across Franconia Notch to the Kinsmans.


 

Clouds advancing over Mt. Moosilauke. Time to head down after a marvelous summit stay of an hour and twenty minutes, with no one else here the entire time.



A total of eight hikers, including me, climbed Liberty this day, and all were in snowshoes. Yay! The snowshoe track was a beautiful thing to descend. The long steady section was still a leg burner, though. On the way down I met a woman who is closing in on completing her 4000-footers over 70, with only five peaks to go. Good luck!



What a pleasure to snowshoe down through the open hardwoods on the gentler lower half of the trail.



 

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Downes Brook Slide: 2/10/25


I headed over the Kanc Highway to the Albany Intervale with two hike options in mind - the Downes Brook Slide on the north side of Mt. Passaconaway (if the lightly-used Downes Brook Trail had any kind of old track under the new snow), or Potash Mountain, which was much more likely to have been broken out before the latest snowfall. The Mount Potash Trail did indeed have a solid snowshoe track under ~5-6" of fresh powder. But at the Downes Brook/Potash junction I noted an older, narrow track leading up Downes Brook Trail. It looked wider than the tracks made by classic X-C skis, suggesting it was made by alpine touring skis. If so, those skiers might have headed into the Downes Brook Slide, one of my favorite snowshoeing destinations. I wouldn't know until I broke trail about 0.3 mile to where the touring X-C ski trail turned off to the left. When I got there, the track continued ahead. On to the slide!





With a month-plus of cold snowy weather, I figured the four crossings of Downes Brook would be pretty well locked in. And they were, with just a couple of sketchy-looking spots. This shows the first crossing, at 0.7 mile.


For the two miles of following the old ski track, I broke trail through generally a foot of powder.



Without the old narrow track beneath, I would have been breaking through much more snow than that, and I would not have attempted it. Thanks go to the skiers who went in here before the last few snowfalls.


 

Following the thin white line.




The second crossing of Downes Brook is a wide one.
 



Into the Wilderness.



A nice hemlock stand between the trail and the brook.



Looking back down a long, gently rising straightaway, following the course of an early 1900s logging road of the Swift River Railroad.



After a bit of bushwhacking, I emerged on the lower open slabs of the slide, with a couple of old tracks from the skiers marking the snow.





These broad ledges remain open more than 130 years after the slide came crashing down off the northern slope of Mt. Passaconaway during a storm in 1892. Around 1900 a trail was cut from the top of the slide to the summit of Passaconaway, and for many years, this was the primary hiking route to that peak from the Albany Intervale. The trail was discontinued by the Forest Service in 1957 due to its at times hazardous footing on the ledges, especially when wet. The route is still occasionally used by experienced bushwhackers, but it is quite obscure in summer and in winter there is very little evidence of the old trail. In winter the low-angle slabs become a vast snowfield, a wonderful place to wander around on snowshoes. Though avalanche danger was considerable this day in the eastern ravines of Mt. Washington, that was not a concern on these 17 to 20 degree slopes.




I meandered over to a corner for a peek up at the northern crags of Mt. Passaconaway.



Making tracks in the deep snow atop the slabs.



Looking across the Downes Brook valley to Potash Mountain, partly obscured by persistent flurries.



Presumably due to its age and its low elevation (2,100 ft. at this spot), the Downes Brook Slide is home to more white pines than I've seen on any other White Mountain slide. This exposed youngster is one of the smaller specimens, but along the edges of the slabs there are many good-sized pines.


 

A small cascade, frozen and buried.



Higher up on the slabs, the view includes trailless "South Potash" on the left.




Part of the fun of snowshoeing up the slide is the occasional steep detour through the woods around a frozen cascade.



A beautiful spruce forest borders the east side of the slide.



Peering down from the top of the cascade.



Deep snow on the next set of ledges.



Just above is another cascade, with pool.



Above that cascade is another large slab. At the top, hidden under the snow, is an iron ring bolted into the rock, used to lower loggers' horse teams down into the woods during the days of the Swift River Railroad (1906-1916).



Such a fun route to snowshoe!



The ledges go onward and upward.



A switchback lifted me up through this cascade.



Yup, it's deep out here.



Due to a late start and slow trail-breaking, this ledge at 2400 ft. was my turnaround point on the slide.



It has an excellent view up to the northern crags of Passaconaway, where the old trail popped out to a viewpoint at the top of a long, extremely steep climb through the woods. That viewpoint is still accessed by a 0.3 mile side trail down from the Walden Trail near the mountain's summit. It is the best vantage point on Passaconaway and is well worth the effort to visit.



Heading back down.



Last look back from the lower slabs.