Back to the Old School 46ers...Macomb Slide - 1974 vs. 2006

[elhefe007a]

Having just done the Dix Range yesterday, I again had my father scan and email me some more older pictures, this time of the Macomb Slide when he climbed it in 1974...obviously I was expecting some differences, but not like this.

Is the same slide that is climbed today, the same that was climbed back in '74? The terrain looks similar, and obviously the slide looks much wider along the edges which I was expecting...but what am I seeing at the top?

 

[Skyclimber]

Could that possibly be the 1947 slide to Macomb that he climbed? I have never climbed that slide, but this one looks much different than the slide most climbed today.

I am enjoying looking at your old pictures of the peaks. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Mark Schaefer]

Is the same slide that is climbed today, the same that was climbed back in '74? The terrain looks similar, and obviously the slide looks much wider along the edges which I was expecting...but what am I seeing at the top?

Yes, I believe that is the 1947 slide which I climbed in 1976. The picture is probably taken near what the McMartin book describes as the junction of the second and third slides. This leads to some cliffs below the south summit of Macomb. At the base of the cliff the herd path led to the left and then up. Once on top it was about a half mile walk along a well defined herd path over two bumps to the Macomb summit - where you arrived via a more recent slide.

 

[eddie]

Last year I went up Macomb via the herd path along Slide Brook and up the current slide route. However, I recalled that when I climbed Macomb and a slide in 1977, I had to traverse along a herd path to get to the summit. Maybe in the '70s the herd path went to the 1947 slide?

 

[Mark Schaefer]

The 1947 slide was the recommended route (and herd path) from Elk Lake in the 1970s. The 1947 slide appears as a wide hiker highway on the 1953 topo. From the 1975 revision of the 1972, 8th edition of Guide to Adirondack Trails, ADK:

"The most popular route up Macomb follows the great slide of 1947. Take the Elk Lake - Dix Trail to Slide Mountain Brook which is about 100 yds. S of Slide Brook lean-to. Follow the brook eastwardly for about 0.60 m. to the first tributary of significance which comes in from the SE. Follow this tributary for about 0.75 m., avoiding the first major slide descending from the NE, the most direct route to the summit but dangerously covered with loose rock. A second slide from the NE about 0.25 m. further upstream offers an open route to the cliffs below the S summit of Macomb. Traverse the base of the cliffs 100 yds. to the N and climb to the top of the ridge. The true summit is about 0.50 m. N along the ridge."​

I don't believe the first slide is shown on the topo maps. McMartin later recommended a third slide further up the tributary as a better approach. It appears that your father took the second slide (as recommended at the time by the ADK), and in the photo is perhaps just coming to the merge with the third slide, as shown in the topozone link in my earlier post. There is also a fourth slide further up the tributary that appears on the 1976 metric topo that led to the ridge further to the south.