Archive for the ‘Long Days’ Category

Crawford Notch, Mt. Webster 4×4

1/8/12

words & photos; Alan Cattabriga

The Gallery

The Horses are on the Track

In late October the first ice was climbed. The ice season was starting.  As usual I was chomping at the bit and wanted more.  Then the temperature started to show signs of being bipoler.  The swings so far this season have been up and down like an out of control EKG reading.  And although there is a prediction of 6-10″ of snow as I write this, a very lean snow year is upon us.

Hitting the conditions while the weather was in a state of mania was the trick. Some of us failed and were caught in the quick swing back to manic. Many climbers have voiced disdain for the start of the season, those that have, are not totally wrong.  The usual steep suspects have been slow to show up and some of the big routes many not even form this season.   However, if one looked, there has been plenty of ice to climb and in some of the best conditions a climber could ever wish for. A lean snow year has it’s advantages too. All that one has to do is stop the neighing and giddy-up.

Katie Ives, Trick or Treating in Damnation Gully, Huntington Ravine

Of  Little Snow and Cold Air

I had this day planned for some time. It’s early January and with very little snow, a good shot of cold air, the time was right.  Even ice at the lower elevations was forming at last and getting climbed. Repentance, Remission and Dropline,  being some of the steeper lines, were sent. But for me I had something else in mind.  The conditions were ripe for a day of continuous movement over a variety of terrain before any snow falls and sucker punches my plan right in the throat.

Mt. Webster in Crawford Notch is like home for me. But the funny thing was, I had yet to visit as many of the beautiful, alpine rooms it contains in one session.  These rooms would be full of water ice flooring. The typical rugs of white were not installed as of yet. The descents would be more challenging however. Steep, gothic style tree fencing and icy to bare hard earth. But the beauty of hitting these gullies filled with ice, would be well worth the pain of the descents.

The lighting of the day.

The Gauntlet

Linking gullies on Mt. Webster has not been an easy thing for me to envision.  Which order to do them and how to get down after each ascent has raged like a battle in my mind, back and forth, always ending in stalemate.  Though I think of the climbs on this mountain as alpine routes, the mountain is at a low elevation and trees ring the routes like a crown of thorns.  You have but two choices to get down after each climb.  The winding Webster Cliff Trail or throw down the gauntlet and bushwhack down the steep, thickly wooded slope of this mountains western aspect.  I decided to take the pill that makes you small and chase the white rabbit down through the woods to my next climb.

Shoestring's deliciousness

With a plan conjured up during my drive, I’m off for Shoestring Gully. Being the most popular route I need to do it before the tsunami of people arrive. The approach is easy and the ice could not have been better.  After topping out, I do the opposite of a normal Shoestring session. I plunge up hill into the woods then crank a hard left and angle down to the start of Horseshoe Gully.

The descent is through a variety of flora & ground conditions. Tightly growing trees and eight inches of snow lead to open rock with small cliffs. This in turn gives way to more deciduous trees and bare, hard ground. I work my way down and north to the next crease in the mountain.

Horseshoe is a line I had never been on.  The climbing was not it’s redeeming feature, its character and mood was.  To be in a place I had never tread was wonderful. The views out, towards the notch and Mt. Willey were different for me.  While in this gully the clouds had lowered and a light snow started to fall.  I look up to a mixture of snow and ice, rolling upwards to the deep woods hemming in this upper zone. It’s there I moved out and south to make my descent.  In what seemed a short amount time I was following my tracks down once more.  Another act of stumbling, falling, getting stabbed and slapped in the face was underway.  All the while yelping like a hurt coyote or growling like a bear as I pay my fee for traveling through this place.

I make for my car and move up to the Willey House parking and my next climb, Landslide Gully.  My plan being to ascend that climb then continue north along the Webster Cliff Trail to the mountains summit.  Once there I would drop down the Mountaineers Route and work my way south to  Central Couloir. But first, Landslide Gully.

Typically buried with snow, Landslide sported enjoyable ice for hundreds of feet

Chapter Two; Of Landslide & Central

This landslide scar is the longest, continuous line on Webster  and is a gem  of a route with little snow. Long before the leg burning, low angle slab ( top in the shot  above ) a narrow cascade of ice meandered downward through the lower reaches of the boulder strewn gully.  I put on my crampons and roll along this. Moving up this frozen water like a part of it, but in reverse fashion from which it was formed.

  

The Headwall section, Landslide Gully

After the calf burning slab one rounds a corner to the headwall section. These two tiers had beautiful, soft columns to ascend. Above this the meandering cascade continues for some distance. Then the exit slot appears. This deep gash is similar in form to the Cleft on Mt.Willard. Very hidden and only revealing its beauty to those that venture to it’s door.  The bushwhack to the Webster Cliff Trail is short and easy. I use the walking along this trail as a rest for my legs before what I know will be a tense descent of the Mountaineers Route. This line has a very long talus tongue that will have about eight inches of snow on it. I feel a healthy dose of butt kicking will be coming my way all too soon.

Along Webster’s ridge

Hiking along the ridge is wildly beautiful. The wind has picked up, the feel is pure winter and not a soul is around.   From the summit  I move down a steep exposed section to the main opening of the Mountaineers Route.  The talus is as I expected,  loose and covered with just enough snow to make it a major epic.  However off to the side I find a little ease.  The scrub and trees offer better ground and more snow has accumulated covering some of the roughness.

I descend fast and in a blink of an eye, the deeper snow disappears, the woods thicken and I’m back on frozen brown ground.  My movement down is an uncontrolled, reversed version of Tarzan.  At last I come to the Gallery area.  This is an excellent place to climb, one totally overlooked though in plan view from the road.  From here I traverse the base of the huge rock slab that becomes the left side of Central Couloir.   The footing is treacherous, a light dusting of snow covers waxy  oak leaves, roots and sticks. Another body beating takes place.  My legs are tired and cramp up something awful.  I’m hobbled by spasms and  begin to doubt  if I’ll be able to climb Central.

When I arrive at the start of the route my legs are sore and close to being sloppy dead but the cramps are gone. The start of the route is thin but soon it becomes another awesome connection of ice walls and slabs. At the upper cliff band I have to call the day.  To do one of the finishes would be hard and there is no easy way out.  Not to mention I would have to descend ether the Mountaineers Route again or take the Webster Cliff trail back south and the road back to my car.

The Willey House in Crawford Notch

The journey down to the Willey House parking from my high point will be no easy task.  I chill for a moment and enjoy the place I’m in.  After a few photos I begin my descent through the woods on the south side of Central.  One last marble run takes place.  Except this time I’m completely spent . However I have beer in my car and get one more click of energy out of my body so it all balances out.

 The Skinny

A total of eight hours was spent moving up and down Mt. Websters  west face. The elevation gain & loss for the day was ~ 12,800′. Not bad for starting at ~1,100′  on a mountain that is only 3,800′ high.

~Alfonzo

Pinnacle, Shoestring and The Throat in a day

By Alan Cattabriga

The Details:

1. Pinnacle: Leave Car 6am,  Back down 9:15am.  (3hrs. 15min.)

2. Shoestring: Leave car 10:20am,  Back down 12:10 (1hr.50min.)

3. The Throat: Leave car 1pm, Back down 5:50pm. (5hrs.50min.)

Total Time: 10 hrs. 55 min.

Total Distance: 16.07 Miles

Total Elevation Gain: 7613 ft

The Story….The Adirondack climbers had the cool name, “The Trilogy”, damn it!! I grew up reading Tolkien,  my other main staple in my youth was Castaneda,  a load of killer titles, but the ”collection” of books had no name. Good thing they did not, for I don’t think I could ever climb as many alpine routes in a day as Carlos has books. But ”Trifecta”, now there is a sweet sounding word. A word that can be applied to a few different activities…..Of testing the legs and getting some times;In Jan ’08, Ted Hammond & I did a Shoestring/Lincoln’s Throat combo. It took us like 11hrs; Shoestring went like clock work but the approach to the Throat was hideous, with deep snow and the stream open here & there. In one of the “here” portions I took a little dip. We also lost some time for we wanted to do a unknown left finish to the Franconia Ridge that leaves the main drainage before the Throat, but we took our turn too soon (my fault) and after a long, cool gully, it dead ended at a spruce wall that resembled the Spartan spears in the movie 300. We descended the gully (I was really pissed at my faux pas) and motored up to the Mullet (right slab) line to Lincoln’s summit and enjoyed an awesome sunset. Our mistake took time but gave us a huge sunset gift.
This past Dec. I dabbled again, this time with Damnation, descending Lion’s Head then Shoestring combo. I kept my pace at a slow boil in the ravine, but being alone I went hard on Shoestring and took 20mins. of my fastest time there. (6.5 hrs. total time.)The ice season comes full circle every year, we start & end in the alpine zone, time to stop thinking and start doing. The second wk. of March had started, conditions in the zone were looking good. The next few days were going to be sunny and nights cold. My day was going to be Friday the 13th. Worry? Why should I? I’m not superstitious, though the last time I took this date off, I augured into the ground off of Omega’s first pitch and got totally owned.Of the Trifecta: Pinnacle Gully, Shoestring Gully & Lincoln’s Throat;I’m up early Fri. morning and leave the house at 3:45am. I’ve gone over the times I want to do each section and the best way to do this. For the ravine portion, the fastest way would be Pinnacle then down South. I leave the car in Pinkham at 6am. The moon was just starting to wan and low, but lit the trail nicely.
I get to the ravine just as the sun is lighting up the headwall, it’s cold, single digits and a bit windy but bluebird. I hear the sound of a snowmobile coming and talk with avy ranger, Justin, as I get ready. The snow in the Fan is glazed and rock hard, Pinnacle looks beautiful. The ice was hard and brittle, with thin cracks/lines running this way and that. Because of these cracks my tools were breaking off triangular chunks which made tool placements kind of a pain. After the first 200′ the rest of the climb is hard, ice covered snow. Total fun, single tool climbing. I’m down South Gully fast, remove the ‘poon’s and jog the trail down.I find the snow absolutely perfect on the approach to Shoestring. So hard, I put the crampons on as soon as I started going up in the woods. The gully was in great condition and the direct finish awesome. The Webster Cliff Trail was very hard snow and crampons would have been the ticket, but I wanted to jog down so I took them off. After the first steep sections, and a few borderline out of control glissades, the rest of the trail was nice. It was now 11:50 and I wanted to start the approach to the Throat by 1 to stay on time. Perfect..
Now I thought the driving parts would be great, time to refuel, crank some Dead, take the boots off, give the feet a break and it was…. but when I got out at Lincoln’s parking, my legs had stiffened up pretty bad. It took a fair amount of hiking to loosen them again. Even though the snow conditions had been great, I decided to bring the snowshoes, I did not want to get into the Lincoln’s approach drainage and have a posthole party.
The Old Bridle Path was good & packed, I put the shoes on for the steep bushwhack down to the Throat’s drainage. Once there I discovered a gift – two people had gone up earlier and broken the hard crust. I removed the shoes and followed their tracks. The going was good and eventually the snow hard enough to stay on top. The Throat was fat and I climbed it right of the usual ice hose, the snow above the ice was excellent. On Lincoln’s summit there was a light wind and I could see for miles. I’m stoked!! While digging the views I drink a Red Bull and eat the last of a cookie & Balance bar. It’s 4pm and time to go, the Franconia Ridge to Little Haystack was all ice and hard snow, very nice. The hike down the Falling Waters Trail was packed, hard snow so I keep the ‘poons on almost the whole way down. I got back to the car just shy of 12hrs. (10hrs of total hiking/climbing) after starting in Pinkham… A phone call home and the next stop is the nearest beer store.There are many link-ups one can do around here. Adding Adams Slide on Cannon to what I did would be very doable. For this linky I thought of the car as a base camp and I could keep my pack light, once above tree line I had on all I brought for cloths, a little food and 1 pint of Gatorade per section, except on the Throat, I had only about 8oz. left and the Bull.
Come to find out The “Trilogy” got sent about the same time as my day by Joe Szot & and a friend. Awesome! Then Emilie Drinkwater repeats it a few days later, solo. Yeah, totally awesome.. To be out there, a long day, alone takes some fortitude, but the feeling you get……Now I’m in no way am thinking that I’m the first person to do this link-up. I’ve never heard of it being done though, it was a test just for me.AlanMore Links ……..Lincoln’s Throat – Mt. Lincoln – eguide on NEicePinnacle Gully – eguide on NEiceThe Throat- Photo search on NEicePinnacle- Photo search on NEiceShoestring - Photo search on NEicePhotos & content by Alan Cattabriga, maps, links and web page by Doug Millen

The North Face of Gothics, Grand Central on Marcy and Colden’s Trap Dike in a day.

by Emilie Drinkwater

My decision to try the “Trilogy” was made on a Sunday afternoon, March 15th. Inspired by recent link-up activity in the Northeast (Alan Cattabriga’s Trifecta in NH and Joe Szot’s Adirondack Trilogy), I decided that conditions wouldn’t get any better for my own attempt at the Trilogy. This link-up starts on the North Face of Gothics and continues up and over Saddleback, Basin, and the shoulder of Little Haystack, dropping into Panther Gorge, ascending a line called Grand Central to the summit of Marcy, down Marcy, into Avalanche Lake, up Colden’s Trap Dike, down the backside and out.

I started this adventure at 4:30am on Monday morning (March 16th) with a two-mile uphill bike ride from Keene Valley to the Garden trailhead (having dropped my car at the Adirondack Loj the night before, I didn’t want to ask anyone to drive me anywhere at 4am). I started the actual Trilogy at 5:02am and was determined to ski as much as possible, as I had opted not to bring snowshoes and hate walking in crampons. The first mile and a half was slow going and I probably took my skis on and off fifteen times to cross large patches of bare ground or ice. Eventually the snow became more consistent and I was able to move quickly, reaching the base of the North Face at first light.

Choosing a line to the far right on the North Face allowed a straightforward ascent to the summit, which I reached at 8:30am. Little did I know, the difficult part of the day was only just beginning; having never been on this section of the Range Trail, I was under the impression that I would be following a ridgeline all the way to Little Haystack. Wrong! In fact, this section of trail descends and ascends each of those peaks and includes a section of steep, open rock that seemed to be in the range of 3rd or 4th class climbing (at least in ski boots and crampons). In addition to now feeling very sluggish in the legs, this down-climb had slowed the pace significantly.
I continued plodding toward Little Haystack, skiing sections on occasion, but mostly walking (skis on my back) on packed trail, all while snagging the skis on every overhead branch and limb, wasting energy climbing over and under downed trees. At last I started to get views of Marcy’s impressive south face and the remote Panther Gorge below. Having never been on this section of trail, let alone anywhere near Panther Gorge, I knew my only hope of getting in there would be following the tracks of Joe and his partner, four days prior. Sure enough, just past the Slant Rock/Marcy Trail intersection, I spotted a faint set of tracks heading into the Gorge. I nervously followed the tracks (these guys had wisely put snowshoes on for this section) down into the abyss of Panther Gorge. Almost immediately, I lost their trail and started desperately postholing. Panicked and exhausted by dropping into waist deep spruce holes (for more than 45 minutes at this point), I started to regret bringing skis instead of snowshoes. The skis caught on everything and what branches they didn’t break, they instead shook thousands of pine needles down my back. I knew turning around and postholing out would be more difficult than what I’d just come through, so I made the conscious decision to continue, hoping to make it to some feature that would take me up and out to the relatively open slopes of Marcy’s south face. Only minutes later, I regained Joe’s tracks (and the greatest sense of relief ever!), and followed them up a short, steep step into the Grand Central gully. The sunny, openness of this snow gully was fantastic, but my legs were now so tired that I was reduced to taking 50 steps followed by 30-second rests. I had also long since run out of water and had been forced to fill a water bottle from a dripping icicle; I did treat the water but probably not for long enough… hopefully I won’t have giardia next week!

I reached the summit of Mt. Marcy at about 3:30pm. Sadly, somewhere in my Panther Gorge struggle, my watch had set itself back an entire hour, leading me to believe it was 2:30pm at the summit. Suspicious of the sun’s location in the sky, I checked my cell phone and discovered the mistake. Feeling pressured for time, I put my skis on and immediately started my descent on the Marcy ski trail. It should be noted that Joe’s descent from the summit of Marcy took the Feldspar/Lake Tear trail down to Lake Colden, whereas my descent (because I chose to ski) took me down to Marcy Dam (a mere two miles from my car), in approximately 35 minutes. From here I headed back up into Avalanche Lake and, for the first time in the day, felt so happy to have skis, which were faster and allowed my legs some recovery time.

I reached the base of the Trap Dike at about 5:15pm and because of its western aspect, the sun beating down was warm and bright as if it were noon. I took a quick break here to eat some sugar-laden, caffeine-laced snacks, and I started back uphill again with a second wind. Tired of listening to my heart race, I pulled out the ipod to get through the last tedious section of the Trilogy, and was spurred along by such motivational classics as Eye of the Tiger and The Final Countdown. Despite this, my legs were so tired that I had been further reduced to 10 steps followed by 30-second rests.

I reached Mt. Colden’s summit at about 7:15pm, just as the sun was setting. Fear of missing the Lake Arnold trail off Colden’s summit in the dark, made me move quickly and I reached Lake Arnold before I needed my headlamp. From this point, I was able to ski the snowshoe trench out to Marcy Dam and from the Dam to the Loj, reaching the parking lot at 8:44pm.
15 hours, 42 minutes, my final time (unless I’ve done the math wrong, which wouldn’t be surprising). I went into this with low expectations, never trying to be faster than Joe, only hoping to finish at all. I like to remind myself that this Trilogy was never my vision only something that seemed like a good challenge. I believe that conditions couldn’t have been better and having a track to follow was indispensable. While I may not be at my fittest, an extensive endurance background did finally pay off. And, when Jan Wellford recovers from a broken pelvis, you can bet that my time will be crushed as well!

–Emilie Drinkwater, 3/19/09

Emilie is owner/guide; Cloudsplitter Mountain Guides in Keene Valley NY. www.cloudsplitterguides.com

By Louis-Philippe Ménard