OJI South Slide

Page Type Page Type: Route
Location Lat/Lon: 45.92750°N / 69.0151°W
Additional Information Route Type: Hiking, Mountaineering
Seasons Season: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter
Additional Information Time Required: Most of a day
Additional Information Difficulty: 3rd class
Sign the Climber's Log

Approach

Tooltip for IE: Sasshonger

You drive north 8 miles from Millinocket to Ambajejus Lake and wind through aspens and birch forest toward the Katahdin view boulder. Travel another 6 to 8 miles to the Togue Pond gatehouse. Give the gatekeeper $8.00 per out of state car (Instate does not pay). Drive past Abol and Katahdin Stream campgrounds and go an additional 2.5 miles from Katahdin Stream to Foster Field which now has porta poties. The trail is on the north side of the field. Wander into the woods and start walking. The letters on OJI were spoiled by storm damage in 1932.

Route Description

Aftter walking into the woods start hopping over boulders and eventually get onto split log bridges that are extremely slippery in the rain. Pass a beaver pond or two and start following a brook up the mountain. At .4 miles observe the fork to the north slide which is now a bushwack trail. It is better ascend the North slide than to descend it since it has suprise cliffs below the slides. Stay right and and pass through some alternations of hardwood and conifers eventually breaking into glades of good sized sugar maple and birch. At 1.8 miles start to ascend steeply until the base of slide where it gets a lot steeper. The slabs over lap a bit making it interesting. Having passed these slabs work your way up the landslide (just to the east from the original old I from OJI) to the summit ridge. Walk west to the top. Descend the same way because the north slide has some surprise cliffs at the bottom of the slides and is no longer maintained. Distance 2.9 miles vertical gain 2350 feet. The steep climbing including the slide will gain 1100 feet in .44 miles.

Essential Gear

You can have alpine adventure in the winter-just bring the double boots. I understand that the wind scours lots of snow off the south slides but you would have to enquire about avalanche condition from the park folks.

Summertime: I packed some fleece just in case, I brought a headlamp water and Galibier leather mountaineering boots. In the early summer and late spring bring some mosquito/ black fly reppelant. If you are from out west you may be familiar with a gnat called the buffalo gnat. The black fly has pretty much the same DNA as the buffalo gnat and is a more serious pest than the mosquito.

Miscellaneous Info

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Parents 

Parents

Parents refers to a larger category under which an object falls. For example, theAconcagua mountain page has the 'Aconcagua Group' and the 'Seven Summits' asparents and is a parent itself to many routes, photos, and Trip Reports.

OJIRoutes