Sunday, December 2, 2018
Miles: 6.0
Elevation gain: 1903′
Start/end: Slide Mt West Trailhead
GaiaGPS track
After hiking Hunter, I hopped in my car and drove the 45 minutes to the Slide Mountain trail head. It was a bit of an adventure, since I’d neglected to download the Google Maps directions and there was almost no service except at the summit. I did end up pulling up Google Maps on the summit of Slide to take screenshots for my return home though!
I was one of two cars at the trail head, which generously had a porta potty. I hung my snowshoes off my wrists and headed out, immediately doing some acrobatics to avoid getting my feet wet in a high-flowing creek crossing. I managed to cross unscathed and then strapped on my snowshoes because I didn’t want to carry them any further. For the first mile or so, there wasn’t much use for the snowshoes; but after that, they were very well worth it.
The summit had 2-3 feet of snow and because of the warmer weather and rain, there was 6 inches of water hiding under the snow. Boots fell right through into the water. I passed by two guys out for a night of backpacking. They were clearly noobs – they were bare booted and carrying packs that weighed at least 50 pounds. They told me that they’d attempted to summit but the water was so high they turned back. I saw where their footprints ended, and sure, they’d gotten their boots wet because there was 6 inches of water under the snow, but it wasn’t much. And with snowshoes, I walked right over the water on top of the snow.
I made the summit in good time and then headed back to my car.
Transcending Mountains 