Mountain Wandering: Snowshoe to Southwest Slide, Mount Liberty: 1/10/25

On a fine sunny yet windy day I returned for one of my favorite snowshoe bushwhacks - from the paths at The Flume up to the easy part of Flume Slide Trail, then from that trail up to the main 1883 Southwest Slide on Mt. Liberty.

The summit of Liberty was veiled in wind fog as I descended mid-morning to the Flume Covered Bridge.

In the past cold week the broad ledgy section of Flume Brook had become a massive ice flow.

Under these conditions traction is essential to walk the Flume-Pool loop.

From the high point of the Flume paths I set off on the bushwhack up the slope to the Flume Slide Trail. This whack is almost 100% through open hardwoods.

Though the cover was thin in a few places, snowshoeing conditions were excellent with several inches of new powder atop a crunchy base. The wind was roaring overhead, but was not an issue down here in the woods.

I always enjoy the mature hardwoods that cloak this slope, such as these towering sugar maples.

And this weather-beaten yellow birch.

There were no tracks on the Flume Slide Trail, and I almost went across it without realizing it.

It was fun to make first tracks on this pleasant section of trail, though the rocky stretches were bony.

Peering into the gully scoured out by the Mt. Liberty slide, which surged down into the Flume Brook valley during an intense rainstorm in June, 1883. It was powerful enough to sweep the famous suspended boulder out of The Flume, almost a mile downstream from here.

To start the whack to the slide, I crossed the boulder train deposited along the edge of the slide, known as a debris flow levee.

For a short distance I ascended through a nice hardwood glade.

Then I picked up the bed of a partly overgrown early 1900s logging sled road, which runs up the slope parallel to the brook that drains the slide.

This blowdown was a crawl-under.

Sections of the road are quite open and offer excellent snowshoeing.

Looking back.

There were some decent drifts of fresh wind-blown powder along the road.

Higher up, the woods along the road are open, but the climbing is quite steep. Cutting switchbacks made it easier. Overall the climb to the slide from Flume Slide Trail rises 1000+ ft. in 0.7 mile.

Eventually a branch road veers off towards the slide.

Deeper snow here.

Where I first reached the slide, I found that there was only a thin cover of snow atop solid ice, dashing my hopes of snowshoeing up the swath as I had done on previous visits with deeper snow cover. After a bit of steep and thick whacking, I emerged on a safe spot on the lower of three open segments of the slide. Facing south to the sun, and mostly protected from the wind, I enjoyed almost balmy conditions here while admiring the view out over the Pemigewasset River valley to Mt. Moosilauke and other peaks in the western Whites.

A closer look at the Moose. Part of Bog Eddy, a large wetland on the plateau south of Mt. Pemigewasset, can be seen in the center of the photo,

Ice bulges guard the upper end of the lower swath of the slide. Not going up that way.

I worked my way steeply up through snow-laden conifers with slippery loose snow underfoot, and came out to a shelf between two ice bulges for another view.

This icefall divides the lower and middle open swaths of the slide.

A steep and slippery loop through the woods brought me up to the lower end of the middle open swath.

From here I could see over towards the Coolidge Mountains near Lincoln.

Looking across the slide to another ice bulge.

Looking up the middle swath of the slide.

The view of the upper swath of the slide was blocked by a band of trees, but I could see a neat-looking ice cliff up on the headwall.

In the past I had snowshoed up to the base of the upper swath, but on this day there was ice everywhere under the thin layer of snow. I tested it out, and decided that only with full crampons would it be safe to proceed upward on the slide.