Adams Slide Trail to Mt. Adams and beyond 8/7/05

After hiking the Huntington Ravine Trail and the Arrow Slide, Dugan and I decided we needed something a little more challenging this weekend. We decided on the Adams Slide Trail to Mt. Adams.

Since others had expressed some interest in slide trails we posted the hike here at views. Only Thunder Dan expressed interest in the hike. Little did he realize what he was getting himself into.

We met at the Great Gulf trailhead at 8:00 and at about 8:20 we headed out. We made our way up the Great Gulf Trail over two suspension bridges to the Six Hunbands Trail. This we followed a half mile to the Buttress Trail. We followed the Buttress Trail about .1 mile to a sharp right turn after which the trail emerges from the trees onto the talus.

From the sharp turn the, now abandoned, Adams Slide Trail proceeds straight up the steep overgrown slope. From the corner, looking uphill, several stones are visible forming a step(no photo). After about 50' the trail becomes more obvious. We saw about a dozen red blazes along the lower portion of the trail. Further up, the trail becomes more difficult to follow. Several times we had to bushwhack around blowdowns and severly overgrown areas until finally we realized......we'd lost the trail.

I consulted my GPS (Etrex Vista) and realized the trail had made a right turn behind us and we were following a dry streambed. Rather than backtrack down the steep slope we decided to bushwhack, as if we weren't already bushwhacking, over to the trail which was about 250' to our right. I got the distinct impression Thunder Dan didn't like this part of the hike. Nobody ever told him we'd be bushwhacking a bushwhack. It took us about 40 minutes to plow, climb, and crawl over to the trail.

A few hundred feet more up the trail we emerged from the trees onto the lower part of Adams South shoulder. From here the trail was a mixture of rock hopping and scrub for about .2 miles and then all rocks to the junction with the Star Lake Trail. From here it was a short steep climb to the summit of Mt. Adams. While some areas above treeline on the Adams Slide Trail had plenty of cairns, other areas had none and the GPS had to be consulted a couple more times to find the trail.

After leaving the Buttress Trail it was about 1.3miles, 2,300' climb, 3.5 hours, and about four false summits to the top of Adams, arriving at about 2:00.

After snacks and a group photo, Dugan and I said goodbye to Thunder Dan as he headed off towards Mt. Jefferson.

It seems Dugan had forgot to mention she needed to get in to work early Monday, therefore she couldn't hike half the night. So we canceled our plans to bag Monroe and everything in between, and instead, bagged Sam Adams, J.Q. Adams, and then Headed up the "weanie" (as Stinkyfeet puts it) Osgood Trail, over Madison and back down to the Great Gulf Trail. We arrived back at the parking area around 7ish, followed by Thunder Dan about 10 minutes later. He had come down the Six Husbands Trail from Jefferson, so he didn't seem quite as chipper as Dugan and I. (The Six Husbands Trail has a very steep section)

Thunder Dan wasn't real pleased with the hike, but it couldn't have been all bad, he expressed interest in climbing the North slide on Mt. Osceola sometime. (edited: to change West Peak to Osceola)

Note:
Though the word slide is used in the name of the Adams Slide Trail, there is little evidence of a "slide". Picture the steep portion of the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail above the Gem Pool with almost no turns and 35 years of abandonment. That's not to say this trail doesn't get hiked at all. There was evidence others have been up it in the last few years.

All things considered, it was another great hike with great company on a beautiful day, followed by a shower at the PNVC and then a terrific dinner in North Conwayr at Delaney's . Though not quite as good as the home cookin' I had last weekend

Pics are here

NH Mtn Hiker,
I considered coming along on this trip with you when you posted Friday.
I could have done without the traversed bushwacking though.
Kind of figured the trail would have been open and rock ledges/slides, but that was not the case for you "slide seekers".

There is a large slide to the west/nw of the actual trail you did, which must be the regional namesake.
Ever think of doing that? Looks seriously steep and loose scree!

Great report, maybe someday I'll get to it.

Brownie

Stinkyfeet said:

You guys' experience on the Adams Slide Trail was much like my own when I did it with a group of friends back in 1997: i.e. we followed an old trail of sorts for awhile but then lost it & ended up going through some really thick krummholz. (By the way, Dugan's & your [?] legs don't look very scratched up on the Adams summit photo--how'd you manage that?!)

And I don't really think the Osgood Trail is for weenies--was just trying to be a smart a*s. It's a beautiful trail!

Click to expand...

Long pants and gaitors! We went back to shorts as soon as we were above treeline.

Yes, the Osgood Trail was great. Are there any trails that are easier for descending into the great Gulf?

Yup, long pants, trail runners, tank top. Seeing ThunderDan's legs made me very glad of that decision. I have a few little scratches on my arms, barely worth mentioning. I had long sleeves with me but it wasn't bad enough to bother with them.

Just before we emerged onto the rocks, a very rude tree grabbed ThunderDan's glasses right off his face and suspended them in mid air. Good reminder that if I'm going to learn more about bushwhacking I should start using a glasses strap again. I also learned that southpaws tend to stray leftwards.

I was surprised to see the old blazes. NH had earlier explained that he found the old trail on Topozone (NH - apologies if this is a misstatement), and logged the waypoints from there into his GPS. Goes to show how accurate a GPS can be. As with Huntington and Arrow, I was again surprised that this was not as difficult as I'd expected. Yes, there were steep bits, but those were mostly where the trees were thicker. It was the vegetation rather than the slope that prevented a quicker pace. And though the trees did get thick, they didn't get as thick as I'd thought they might.

Another beautiful day in the Northern Presies - great views. Kind of a wimpy hike, but I don't think my boss would've liked finding me face down drooling on the keyboard this morning!

Hmmmm... anyone for Lincoln Slide?

interesting report and pics. when i view that slope of adams from the corner at the auto road, i would have assumed the trail got out of the scrub quickly and went up the rocks that appear like a 'slide' right up to the summit. seems like you guys were in scrub a lot more than i would have thought, unless i have the wrong impression. I wonder if the trail is to the left or right of what i was looking at.

Adams Slide Trail
Hikerfast,
In the above photo, there are two talus fields in the lower left corner, a large and a small one. The Adams Slide Trail starts between them and goes straight up the slope about 2/3 of the way to the ridge before it gradually turns right reaching the ridge just below treeline. The lower portion of the trail appears to be visible in the photo. The Buttress Trail goes across the larger talus field.

Talus field Is that the correct terminology?

man thats steep. how did you keep from falling over backwards?

Good picture and explanation. "Talus" agrees with a definition I found on line:
A talus slope is an accumulation of rock debris at the base of a cliff or steep mountain slope. Generally, in its early stages of development, it is so unstable as to inhibit growth of vegetation other than the primitive nonvascular plants. Talus slopes are also known as scree slopes.

It truly did not seem all that steep while on it. If it hadn't been as grown in, and we were moving faster, I'm sure it would've seemed steeper. The trees were thick enough that you'd've had to put some effort into falling.

My best guess for the pair of birds we saw while descending Osgood is that they were in the warbler family, perhaps the Black-and-White. I'm not very good with id'ing warblers.

Mt. Adams bushwhack vs high altitude

I just got back from several hikes in Colorado at high elevations, including 3 14,000-foot peaks and over 8 miles of hiking out in wet clothes after a freak snow/sleet/rain squall moved in on Capitol Peak(one of the most difficult 14ers), and even THAT was not as rough as bushwhacking up Mt. Adams!