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Parking:  The Garden
Group: Shawn, Emily & Murphy

 

It was Murphy’s first high peak!  And our first winter one, so we decided to spend the day on a nice, short hike up Big Slide.  The first time I did this mountain I took the Brothers on the way up and then the loop past the John Brook’s Lodge on the way out, but we decided to play it safe and just go up and down the Brothers.  Directions to do this route are below:

• From the parking lot, take the BLUE trail on the right to start climbing immediately up a steady course to a brook crossing
• Stay straight, don’t take the trail on the right towards Porter
• After this, climb steeply to the first Brother (a little over a mile/1.5 hours into the hike)
• There is a short descent, and then the climb goes up steeply again to the second Brother
• There will be yellow blazes to follow, but the markers are still BLUE
• Drop into an open valley and start a much longer and steadier climb
• The summit on the third Brother is mostly wooded
• Another descent, and then climb much more moderately to the summit
• Retrace your steps to head back

We were back to the car and on the road less than six hours after starting the hike (and this included a lot of stops to take pictures and adjust our new gear).

The sunrise coming over the mountains was absolutely beautiful.

From the First Brother, the best views we had that day!

Murphy wasn’t quite sure what to think of his first peak summit.

This is the summit….not so much on the views.  And it was cold!!

Stay warm! xx