Slides on Squaw Mountain(Central Adirondacks)

Goodbye heat and humidity.  Hello autumn!  Woke up to beautiful fall weather with comfortable temperatures and low levels of humidity, which put a huge smile on my face. The game plan for the day was to meet my buddy Jim to do a partial trail hike/ partial bushwhack to 3239 foot Squaw Mountain's slides, starting from the Snowy Mountain trail head along Route 30. 
On my way, I stopped off at one of the roadside campsites along Indian Lake, looking quite beautiful in the early morning light.

We met up at the Snowy Mountain parking area and got geared up and ready to go.  Overcast skies and a northwest breeze put quite a chill in the air, so Jim and I both donned our light jackets and headed off on the trail.

We hiked in a little under a mile, before leaving the trail and dropping down to a crossing over Beaver Brook.  Low water levels made for an easy rock hop across.

Once across the brook, we bushwhacked through open hardwoods where we found a herd path that lead to a campsite along the water.

Beaver Brook above the campsite.

After leaving the brook, we continued our bushwhack northeast into the deep notch between Squaw and East Squaw, slowly ascending through mostly hardwoods until we hit the base of our first rock slide. 

We wandered around the base of the nearly vertical slide for a few minutes, hoping to find a way up.

Jim, contemplating a route up the steep rock slabs.

We flanked the first slide north before we ran into another, smaller slide which also had to be flanked.  Finally we found a small, narrow passageway up through a gully.

As we ascended the steep slopes up through the gully, the enormous rock walls seemed to be closing in on us.

Jim heading onward and upward, gaining elevation very quickly.

As we neared the head of the steep gully, a look back over our shoulder revealed a nice view.

The rock walls were very impressive, towering nearly 30 feet above us.

Squaw's east summit across the notch.

We managed to catch a peek of Indian Lake from the top of the gully as well.

Once above the gully, the route opened up, entering a conifer forest at about 3100 feet.  Unfortunately, the summit is private, so we wandered the ledges, scratching and clawing our way through scratchy conifers to capture a pleasant view southeast towards Indian Lake.

The woods above the ledges.

We side-hilled through the conifers, trying to drop down to the top of the rock slides we had seen earlier, and after a few minutes..

...we found one of the slides!  We secured good footing and enjoyed the amazing views.

Looking down at the slide, which caused a certain level of uneasiness.

The ridgeline to East Squaw.

We dropped down a bit further through the conifers and managed to fight our way to the side of one of the slides.  The pitch was still very, very steep.

We continued our drop southeast, until we encountered another, wide open slide that we hadn't seen earlier.  This one offered up the best views yet!

Snowy Mountain's east ridge line stretching down towards Indian Lake.

The incredibly steep slides.

Once below the last slide, we continued our descent back down into the notch, taking our time with a couple of tricky, steep spots.  We headed southwest through mostly hardwoods until we came to a quiet stream crossing.  We stopped here to relax for a few, as fallen leaves danced on the water.

Crossing back over Beaver Brook on our way back to the trail.  Once on the trail, it was a quick fifteen minutes back to the car. 

A great hike, with about 7.5 miles total RT and 1600 feet elevation gain.
On the way home, I pulled off near Speculator to enjoy the spectacular views across Kunjumak Bay.