Neil
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Mount Marshall et al. 3 of a perfect pair. (3 hikers, 2 slides, 4 summits)
Acme mapper shows a few key points.
This was a fun day in great company. For years I had been trying to figure out where the slides on Marshall, described by John Winkler, were and then this one was plainly visible from Henderson Lake. I forgot I had that picture and after deciding to do Marshall I searched on Google Earth for the slides and there they were. Additionally there is an interesting looking slab visible both in my photo and on GE.
It was 7-ish when Cory, Inge and I pulled into the Upper Works parking lot and spied a bearded man with a keg of beer getting ready to build a bridge. It was Pete Hickey and he was waiting for his crew of volunteers.
Our little group of 3 walked up the delightful and rarely used trail that goes from near the beginning of the Calamity Brook trail over to the Indian Pass trail. When it presses up against the steep southern flank of the Macintyre Range’s south-westernmost summit of significance ( a 3500 footer lacking col depth) it makes a 90 degree turn to the west and that is where made a 90 degree turn to the east, directly into the morning sun (point A).
I wanted to go directly up the 3500 footer, along the ridge and use the GPS to descend to the top of the westernmost slide. Corey was convinced we would spend hours struggling through blowdown hell, Inge didn’t seem to care about anything and I was happy to go along with Corey who had saved me a 10 mile warm-up hike from the Loj. We followed the little stream into the sun until the flats (point B) and when we all agreed we had picked up a new stream we began to follow it Northeasterly towards the slides.
It was all totally awesome. As in, “what did you do today? “ “Oh, I had my large bowel scraped” “Awesome”. Everything was awesome. Perhaps if we were in 1955 everything would have been “peachy”. In our case, when Inge stepped into 4 inches of water that was so clear she didn’t think there was any water there we thought it was awesome.
We pressed onwards and saw two Brown Pine Martens glide fluidly away into the undergrowth. One of us thought they were awesome. Many a tell-tale clue indicated that we closing in the slide and we began to develop slide fever. “Oh, look! I think I see the woods getting really bright over there!!!” Yes indeed, the change in vegetation from the tawny tones of spruce to bright sun-dappled Birch crowns was a dead giveaway. I sagely rubbed 3 days of stubble on my chin and explained to the others that this band of Birch was nothing other but a narrow ecotone demarcating the miles of endless and unbroken spruce woods from the sun-drenched slide. What we were seeing were pioneering birches, whose DNA package had been flown in right after the slide had formed, born on the winds and encased within microscopic seeds…bla bla bla. Too bad I didn’t have a Golite blackboard. Of course this was no slide and my credibility took a serious hit right there.
After a few football fields of easy whacking, we crossed another ecotone and there it was: the great westernmost Marshall slide. I still don’t think Inge understands the difference between an ecotone and a ringtone, but no matter, she can bushwhack like a speedy photon.
The best thing about climbing this slide that is slowly growing in with cedars, but still offers a true blue Feldspar-Anorthosite experience are the views across the the longer, wider and steep Easternmost slide. After finding my pack, we whipped down and over to this slide and climbed up it. We had views like you wouldn’t believe of Henderson Lake and the Santanoni Range as we sat at the top eating our lunch. The slab was next on our list and now the going got very tough with very steep side-sloping and vegetation that began to fight back. I had turned on the GPS to help us stay on course across three very long football fields of very tough going. Half-way to the slab we could see it and it looked way, way too steep to climb. We detoured East and found reasonable woods and good footing, which brought us up to this ridge. (point C)
We had to follow the ridge NW to avoid the valley between us and Marshall so we thought it would be nifty to descend a bit and come out on top of the slab. As we approached it we could see the abyss but we never actually saw the slab, which was guarded by a thick ecotone of the worst gnarly, stratified blowdown imaginable so we beat it to Marshall.
We pushed hard and at times the woods pushed back almost but not quite as hard and not far from the summit we luncheoned upon a huge rock and enjoyed very serious and commanding views of a great many beautiful mountainous features. Wallface was the most amazing of all and Cory and I took several pictures of it. The summit was kind of anti-climactic after the 6 ½ hours of fun we had to get there and before long we were threading upwards through the cliffs below Iroquois.
This was the toughest part of the day for me on this south facing, steep and windless slope. The baking sun and Inge’s pace forced the sweat out of me just as fast as I could drink and when the trickle of water down the “herd path” threatened to cease I added 7 pounds of reassuring ballast to my pack. I descended this route only once, seven years ago, and today it is still more of a bushwhack than a herd path although the treadway is more obvious in places nowadays. When we got to the Tooth Cory said goodbye and descended the drainage to the east of the Tooth and went all the way back to get his overnight pack on the Calamity Brook trail and hike back up with it to Lake Colden. Inge and I continued over Iroquois and basked in the late afternoon summer sun as we moved along. A nice breeze cooled us off.
As we were going up Wright a gentleman seemed alarmed and concerned about me asking if I was hurt and what had happened. What had happened is that both of my pant legs had ripped completely open exposing very dark and filthy lower legs. As we continued he told me to be careful. Other descending hikers informed us that we weren’t all that far now from the summit.
Instead of bushwhacking off of Wright as per the original plan, we re-descended to our packs (yes, Inge forced me to drop my pack) at the Wright junction and hiked out along the trail. Good thing too because we were pretty beat by now and I had promised Sylvie I would hike with her today. We got out at 8 and my HRM indicated that I had burned through 8000 calories, which is more than any of my winter hikes this year with the exception of a 14 hour day breaking trail through the Dix Range. So yes indeed this was a very strenuous hike. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and Cory, Inge and I meshed perfectly and has lots and lots of laughs along the way.
As far as personal lists go I believe Cory needed this one for his Gridiot project and Inge said as a matter of fact so did she for her second July round(?!). In my case Marshall was my 35th whacked 46er peak and number 110 on my list of 128 Adirondack bushwhacks. Whatever, we had fun, got a little exercise and had a lot of awesome views.
(My pictures are still in Keene.)
Acme mapper shows a few key points.
This was a fun day in great company. For years I had been trying to figure out where the slides on Marshall, described by John Winkler, were and then this one was plainly visible from Henderson Lake. I forgot I had that picture and after deciding to do Marshall I searched on Google Earth for the slides and there they were. Additionally there is an interesting looking slab visible both in my photo and on GE.
It was 7-ish when Cory, Inge and I pulled into the Upper Works parking lot and spied a bearded man with a keg of beer getting ready to build a bridge. It was Pete Hickey and he was waiting for his crew of volunteers.
Our little group of 3 walked up the delightful and rarely used trail that goes from near the beginning of the Calamity Brook trail over to the Indian Pass trail. When it presses up against the steep southern flank of the Macintyre Range’s south-westernmost summit of significance ( a 3500 footer lacking col depth) it makes a 90 degree turn to the west and that is where made a 90 degree turn to the east, directly into the morning sun (point A).
I wanted to go directly up the 3500 footer, along the ridge and use the GPS to descend to the top of the westernmost slide. Corey was convinced we would spend hours struggling through blowdown hell, Inge didn’t seem to care about anything and I was happy to go along with Corey who had saved me a 10 mile warm-up hike from the Loj. We followed the little stream into the sun until the flats (point B) and when we all agreed we had picked up a new stream we began to follow it Northeasterly towards the slides.
It was all totally awesome. As in, “what did you do today? “ “Oh, I had my large bowel scraped” “Awesome”. Everything was awesome. Perhaps if we were in 1955 everything would have been “peachy”. In our case, when Inge stepped into 4 inches of water that was so clear she didn’t think there was any water there we thought it was awesome.
We pressed onwards and saw two Brown Pine Martens glide fluidly away into the undergrowth. One of us thought they were awesome. Many a tell-tale clue indicated that we closing in the slide and we began to develop slide fever. “Oh, look! I think I see the woods getting really bright over there!!!” Yes indeed, the change in vegetation from the tawny tones of spruce to bright sun-dappled Birch crowns was a dead giveaway. I sagely rubbed 3 days of stubble on my chin and explained to the others that this band of Birch was nothing other but a narrow ecotone demarcating the miles of endless and unbroken spruce woods from the sun-drenched slide. What we were seeing were pioneering birches, whose DNA package had been flown in right after the slide had formed, born on the winds and encased within microscopic seeds…bla bla bla. Too bad I didn’t have a Golite blackboard. Of course this was no slide and my credibility took a serious hit right there.
After a few football fields of easy whacking, we crossed another ecotone and there it was: the great westernmost Marshall slide. I still don’t think Inge understands the difference between an ecotone and a ringtone, but no matter, she can bushwhack like a speedy photon.
The best thing about climbing this slide that is slowly growing in with cedars, but still offers a true blue Feldspar-Anorthosite experience are the views across the the longer, wider and steep Easternmost slide. After finding my pack, we whipped down and over to this slide and climbed up it. We had views like you wouldn’t believe of Henderson Lake and the Santanoni Range as we sat at the top eating our lunch. The slab was next on our list and now the going got very tough with very steep side-sloping and vegetation that began to fight back. I had turned on the GPS to help us stay on course across three very long football fields of very tough going. Half-way to the slab we could see it and it looked way, way too steep to climb. We detoured East and found reasonable woods and good footing, which brought us up to this ridge. (point C)
We had to follow the ridge NW to avoid the valley between us and Marshall so we thought it would be nifty to descend a bit and come out on top of the slab. As we approached it we could see the abyss but we never actually saw the slab, which was guarded by a thick ecotone of the worst gnarly, stratified blowdown imaginable so we beat it to Marshall.
We pushed hard and at times the woods pushed back almost but not quite as hard and not far from the summit we luncheoned upon a huge rock and enjoyed very serious and commanding views of a great many beautiful mountainous features. Wallface was the most amazing of all and Cory and I took several pictures of it. The summit was kind of anti-climactic after the 6 ½ hours of fun we had to get there and before long we were threading upwards through the cliffs below Iroquois.
This was the toughest part of the day for me on this south facing, steep and windless slope. The baking sun and Inge’s pace forced the sweat out of me just as fast as I could drink and when the trickle of water down the “herd path” threatened to cease I added 7 pounds of reassuring ballast to my pack. I descended this route only once, seven years ago, and today it is still more of a bushwhack than a herd path although the treadway is more obvious in places nowadays. When we got to the Tooth Cory said goodbye and descended the drainage to the east of the Tooth and went all the way back to get his overnight pack on the Calamity Brook trail and hike back up with it to Lake Colden. Inge and I continued over Iroquois and basked in the late afternoon summer sun as we moved along. A nice breeze cooled us off.
As we were going up Wright a gentleman seemed alarmed and concerned about me asking if I was hurt and what had happened. What had happened is that both of my pant legs had ripped completely open exposing very dark and filthy lower legs. As we continued he told me to be careful. Other descending hikers informed us that we weren’t all that far now from the summit.
Instead of bushwhacking off of Wright as per the original plan, we re-descended to our packs (yes, Inge forced me to drop my pack) at the Wright junction and hiked out along the trail. Good thing too because we were pretty beat by now and I had promised Sylvie I would hike with her today. We got out at 8 and my HRM indicated that I had burned through 8000 calories, which is more than any of my winter hikes this year with the exception of a 14 hour day breaking trail through the Dix Range. So yes indeed this was a very strenuous hike. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it and Cory, Inge and I meshed perfectly and has lots and lots of laughs along the way.
As far as personal lists go I believe Cory needed this one for his Gridiot project and Inge said as a matter of fact so did she for her second July round(?!). In my case Marshall was my 35th whacked 46er peak and number 110 on my list of 128 Adirondack bushwhacks. Whatever, we had fun, got a little exercise and had a lot of awesome views.
(My pictures are still in Keene.)
