At last...Slidedown Mountain.
My first view of Slidedown Mt. was from Sally Mt. All I could see was sheer cliffs. My second view of Slidedown was from MUCH closer...and it still had those cliffs, plus a boulder field at its base. I wanted to climb it in the worst way, but...things got in the way.
I did contact the land manager, to see if there was any trail at all. Not so much, he replied. But there were old roads that came darn close to this marvel of the Moose River Region, and I took advantage of them, walking over six miles, round-trip, just to gaze at that view. Sadly, I didn't have nearly enough time, as work was calling. I knew right then that I was coming back.
My third view of Slidedown came a few weeks later, bringing Ms. Amy along. We also had a secret weapon: bicycles. Cut down travel time immensely! It also allowed me to look at the road a LOT closer than I'd ever thought was possible-i.e., i had a wipeout. Don't film and drive, ppl!
This time, we still couldn't find any trail (subsequent queries to the land manager resulted in a potential rock cairn, which we didn't see until the hike was over!). But we did find a goat path to the border swath, and from there quite easily made it to the Monument. Our hope was that we could climb up Slidedown via the border swath, but one look up at the cliff face told a different story.
So we bush-and-boulder whacked our way nearly the whole way to the summit. It was a slightly hazy day (those durn Canadian fires!) but we were satisfied.
For now.
Enjoy!
Kineo Kid