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Mar. 6, 2023 (Mon.)
Elevation: 4240 feet; Order of Height: 27
Participants: Andrew Lavigne, Brian Connell, Gino Brancatelli, Chris Hatko
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Brian's 25th winter 46R Peak: Big Slide Mountain.

A quick short hike to take advantage of a rare sunny day and help Brian achieve his 25th winter 46R peak.

Sandwiched in between endless days of cloud and snow was a sunny Monday; I decided to take a day off of work to help Brian advance his winter 46R goals. Along for the ride were a couple of work colleagues and friends, Gino and Chris (Hatko).

Garden lot was half-full even on a winter Monday morning. Even though a foot of snow had fallen 36 hours before, trail up to the Brothers was already packed out, and packed out enough that we could use microspikes. This brought us all the way up to the Middle Brother, where I decided things were softening enough to require snowshoes.

Excellent clear, bright views from the open areas on the Brothers. Almost every inch of trail was snow-covered. Virtually no bare bedrock or ice anywhere.

Thick snow on boughs in the mid section beyond the brothers. Trail still packed out pretty well all the way to the Big Slide lookout at 3700 feet. Afterwards trail quality degraded and lots of people ahead of us had started to posthole. All of us switched to snowshoes at this point.

Final steep climb up to summit was completely on firm, grippy snow. Ladders were completely buried. Summit was excellent and comfortable (wind was coming from the north and therefore blocked). Excellent views of the Great Range.

Chose to hike back along the ridge trail and down the Brothers as this was much more scenic and substantially shorter than doing a loop via the valley. Congrats Brian on your winter number 25!

Trip Reports, Image Galleries or Other References:
 Image Gallery: March 2023 Big Slide Hike


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