Big Slide

We stayed in a canvas tent at the Loj for a second night, packed up early and headed out. On September 25th, 2020 we met up with a different group of friends and hiked Big Slide via the Brothers. We planned to meet at the Garden parking lot at 8am. It was a Friday so the lot was already full and unfortunately we had to park in the town of Keene, adding 1.5 miles each way to our hike. For being on a road, that 1.5 miles tired me out.

We got to the trailhead a little after 9 am and began our ascent. The hike was fairly steep from the beginning. Along the way there are plenty of open boulders with fantastic views. We thought we had reached the First brother, which was only 1.5 miles from the trailhead, but we weren't there yet. I said it fairly loud and apparently another group thought they were on the First brother also. I blame Kyle for that one!

We went along the route called "the Brothers" which is a popular route to take. they are basically three 'brothers' or mini peaks you have to traverse on your way to Big Slide. The way up was pleasant with constant great views on bald faces of the mountain. This definitely helps with morale as nothing is worse than hiking up a peak with no views along the way. You get views of Blueberry Mountain, Keene Valley, Giant, Porter, Gothics, Armstrong... the list goes on.

We reached the summit at 1145 (18th high peak, at 4240 ft) and after a brief search we found the marker. We also saw the fisher that apparently lives on the summit which was a nice surprise!

We descended back down over the Brothers, even though most people do the loop. Looking back I wish we had done the loop, I hear it's more gradual and easier on the knees. It felt like the brothers, who were nice on the ascent, were betraying us on the descent. This hike was 7.6 miles and took us 5 hours and 30 minutes. If I wasn't in so much pain and hadn't hiked 30 miles in the two days prior, I think this would have been my favorite hike. I would highly recommend doing this hike in the fall because of the foliage. The colors change so much so quickly, there was a huge difference from the hike we had done two days ago.

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