Jim46r
03-12-2012, 04:22 PM
Epic hike Saturday up Giant mountain. We headed up the roaring brook trail and then began to follow the brook onward until reaching the trail once again. We then had split decisions ,but wound up following the trail for and additional mile until the slides were in clear view to our left. At a giant boulder which was posted in ones report we headed left into the woods and the real fun began. Bushwhacking alongside a brook for about an hour we came to a nice sized frozen waterfall.We got all excited and proceeded to climb up it.This turned out to be a false hope as this wasn't the start of our great slide. We bushwhacked another half hour through waist deep snow and thick undergrowth.With clearing apparent to our left we decided that the right was the correct option.That was the wrong choice.We were back on the trail. Realizing that we were almost a mile off course some of us decided to just go for it and blaze our way across the left to the slide. This was very difficult real estate to traverse,but we were a strong unit.After an hour of the thickest bushewhack through the deepest snow I've seen this season we came out onto a magnificent exposed slide. We are talking 8 to 900 feet with at least 50 degree pitch.We all had ropes and technical climbing tools and decided to rope up and climb this baby alpine style.With teamwork and timing we ascended the hard ice steep surface to its top. The exposer was great. Clouds rolling in and out with nothing but peaks within sight behind us. It was truly remarkable. Now that the fun part was over we had realized that this wasn't the great Eagle slide ,but another steep slide on Giants face.At this time we wanted to get to the summit and out of Dodge.The bushwhack from here made the first part look like childs play.The trees got thicker and the snow deeper.Postholing to China it felt like.We really dug deep here and used all our strength to muscle our way through this barrier to the top.It started to look like we were getting close to something and BOOm,we popped out onto the top of the Eagle slide. This was great. There were some very old mostly buried footprints here. We followed upward and reached the blue trail not far from the summit. From then on out it was textbook.Hit the summit and decided that Rocky Peak ridge had to be done as well. RPR was well worth the additional punishment. The clouds had cleared opening up a magnificent majestic view of the Dix range before us. It looked heavenly or spiritual.I took some pics ,but photos just cannot do any justice to the true beauty and greatness that stood before us. That was just a reminded to why I love to do this. After our short time on RPR we headed out to our long,long descent back to Rt 73.Next time I return to these slides I am going with my gut instinct and following the brook all the way instead of detouring to an easier pathway.Luckily the day was salvaged and we still got what we came for.The next day we went ice climbing at Chapel Pond. Perhaps the last day of climbing this season with all the warm temps happening.Still enough snow for a few more winter ascents before its all over though.....Jim Wallace # W6672