Having completed Flume and Liberty twice, I have come full circle. These mountains were the first two. I wanted to see if it was any easier with the conditioning that comes from all that climbing.This time the leaves were covering the trail
and bare trees showed more of what was ahead.
Remind me when I talk about climbing the Flume Slide again, that I don't want to. It was just as difficult the second time as the first. The beginning of the slide was not difficult. But stuck in the middle of the slide, with water all over the rocks, no place up, no place down,
I remember that rock where I just couldn't imagine how I was going to move on. Finally spotting a tiny bump where I might be able to place my boot two feet up on the wet rock, I looked for a handhold. Nothing. No way to circumvent the ledge, no tree branches to clutch, no way off the rock horizontally. This required more study, but my legs were already tired and shaky.
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| Allison's picture of dry slide back in August |
Finally, I just placed my boot on the half inch notch and hugged the rock inching upward. Gloves wet, pants scuffed, heart pumping, no slips.
Only 1500 feet up to get off this part of the trail.
Book time was an hour faster than I was. I blamed it on my short legs. Mt. Flume, 4328 ft.
Getting to Liberty from Flume was easier than climbing that one rock.
Mt. Liberty, 4459 ft.
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