From Cannon Cliff to Crawford Notch and Beyond

New Hampshire

It’s game on in the higher elevations this week!  Lines formed in Pinnacle Gully and other gullies in Huntington saw some action too, including Odells and Yale.  We even had our first minor epic (?) this week.  Yes, someone forgot their three screw anchor on Pinnacle.  So it’s business as usual on Mt. Washington.  The Great Gully in King Ravine got climbed as well.  Although perhaps the most exciting news was happening on Cannon Cliff.  The Black Dike got all sorts of traffic over the weekend.  Erik Thatcher and Art Mooney bailed off The Black Dike because of slushy conditions on Friday, but when Saturday rolled around, Eric Marshall and Jeff Previte found the freeze Friday night good enough, and fired it.  Erik Thatcher decided to return on Sunday with Alexa Siegel and take care of some unfinished business.  They got it done and he left his Nomic hanging on a tree as a flag of their conquest!  Too bad he had to return on Monday and do yet another lap with Art Mooney to retrieve the lone tool.

Also on Monday, Jeffery Dunn and Bryan Kass headed up on Cannon to the Dike, but took on a harder variation.  The duo climbed the Hassig’s Direct variation which had been looking good over the past couple of days.  Here’s Jeff’s report on the day.

“Already sleep deprived, Bryan Kass and I left NYC at 11:00pm Sunday night and swapped “leads” northwards through the driving rain. Pulling into the parking lot at 10am, the presence of another party’s truck was the only indication that conditions might be good on the cliff which lay invisible behind a billowing fog bank. With temperatures above freezing and a steady rain falling, there was no sense of urgency while we ate a breakfast of sausage and chocolate doughnuts and desperately tried to make sense of our wholly disorganized pile of winter gear.

Eventually, we disembarked the van and made our way down the bike path. Halfway to the approach trail we encountered the other climbing party, Art and Erik, who shared the promising conditions report; “soft”.

The first pitch took a screw in addition to the good cam and I set a belay under Hassigs. Unlike the last time we had come through, Hassig’s was in fantastic condition and sans large ice mushroom top-out. Bryan lead through and found good rock gear down low, a decent thread, and then a good screw. Already soaking wet, I was allowed some personal time to explore the fullness of a winter experience. The right side top-out, starting off with a nice ice curtain and moving into aesthetic moderate alpine mixed, brought us to the trees.

Arriving back at the van, there was only one suitable way for two NYC based climbers to celebrate starting the ice season in mid November: drive home immediately and get ready for work in the morning. The van stopped for 20 minutes to get gas and food, arriving in NY just over 24 hours after leaving.”

Across the way from Cannon, others were finding enough ice to climb.  The narrow gully up in the Big Slide Area on the steep western slopes of Mt. Lafayette was picked at by Nick Yardley and David Crothers.  This great little gem of a route is a good early season option.  It’s a two second approach compared to other routes on Mt. Lafayette’s southwestern side such as the Escadrille.  You can bet that route, along with Lincoln’s Throat are in top notch shape.  Also, it wouldn’t be surprising if the Ammo Ravine on Washington is good to go.  Only one way to find out…

So with things blowing up, Doug and I decided to take a few practice flights in Crawford Notch.  WooKong 3.0 and ARDU buzzed by the forming ice routes in this video condition report.

[iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/112234495″ frameborder=”0″=”640″ height=”360″ frameborder=”0″ ]

 

Other Places

In the Adirondacks, Ian Osteyee of Adirondack Mountain Guides and Holly Blanchard of The Mountaineer got on a very thin Chouinard’s Gully over at Chapel Pond.  With snow in the forecast for Wednesday and Thursday and temperatures staying below freezing into the weekend in Keene Valley, it’s go time!

In Vermont, Steve Charest and Alden Pellett got some very thin ice in Smuggler’s Notch last weekend. The pair ticked off Jeff Slide and most of Blind Fate in very thin conditions but finding the finish pillar hadn’t touched down, they bailed from there. Pellett returned during the week with Kel Rossiter of Adventure Spirit Guides to finish up the job on the now freshly-formed free-standing column at the top of that route which they said was “not trivial”.  Pellett, afraid the foot-thick column might collapse with him on it, didn’t place any gear until 15-20 feet up when he was able to get a couple of stubbies in where the ice was attached to the rock.  For the latest conditions in the Notch, check out the conditions page. If you’re thinking of heading up to Smuggs this weekend, a good six inches of fresh powder has locals skiing the Notch road, so make sure to bring your boards for an easy run back to the car!

Down in Pennsylvania, it looks like a quick window of opportunity opened up for November in the Narrows! Climbers in PA had a stellar ice season last year.  Let’s hope for more of the same.

Back up to Ontario, the ice climbing season has started in the Batchawana Bay!  Conditions report courtesy of Superior Exploration Co.

By Courtney Ley and Alden Pellett

Special Thanks to  Erik Thatcher and Jeffery Dunn

Click on the images to enlarge

 

By Courtney Ley

I’ve been inflicted by a disease.  It leaves my muscles constantly sore, my body screaming for sleep and my family and friends worried about my mental stability.   I become antsy and unable to sit idle for too long. I prefer the trunk of my car to my soft bed and prefer pre-dawn hours to high noon. The worst of the symptoms seem to arrive in late fall when the cold begins to settle in.

 It’s not too far off to say that I become inflicted with an energetic state similar to what most animals succumb to during mating season.  In summary, ‘Out of my way! I’m fit and ready to get some.’   My doctors say that certain tendencies can increase my symptoms exponentially. Such as, the habit of thinking positively – all the time. Well, I am doomed for the foreseeable future, so I thought it best to reach out to others who have similar diagnoses.

All I need is a few cold nights and my mind begins the activation process.  Like a slideshow stuck in fast forward, images appear and disappear in front of my eyes. The darkening skies, howling wind, freezing fog, ice crystals forming and snow falling.  Then dawn breaks and that yellow ball strikes that crisp blue sky with intensity but no warmth manages to penetrate the atmosphere. The mountains hold on to the cold of the night, despite the light revealing their sharp ridges and smooth valleys.  When the temperature drops, I find myself on the move.

Sometimes this behavior is rewarded.  When it comes, it feels sweeter than anything you’ve had before. Late last season in May, I hiked into Huntington Ravine accompanied by a friend with a similar ailment. We were pretty damn positive there would still be ice to climb, even if it took climbing a few hundred feet of wet rock and precariously placed vegetation to reach it…and it did.  I had a grin on my face for the entire 80 feet of ice.  Yes, that was it, 80 feet. We were motivated to savor the last licks and it was worth it.  But for the afflicted, the most delicious reward is that first ice of the season. And for me, this comes early, just as the last ice had come late.

Sometimes though, your plate comes up empty.  That doesn’t deter the overly motivated, however. We only get hungrier.  This past Sunday, with my usual high hopes, I packed my gear the distance into the rocky depths of King Ravine.  Sitting on the north side of the mountain, the shade lingers.  This Halloween weekend, however, I didn’t need the shade as a low cloud bank parked itself above the summits.  With those clouds also came hurricane force winds.  Even better, I thought. It’ll freeze any water molecule that decides to visit the alpine arena.  My mind envisioned the drainage of Great Gully just frozen enough.  The slideshow of winter images played themselves out in front of my eyes as I started the approach.  Water slowing, ice crystals forming and snow falling.   Right away I noticed winter had greeted the mountains.  Snow clung tenaciously to the tree branches.  Further up, it hid the withered and wrinkled fall leaves.  Even higher still, the white crystals coated the cool rocks. By the time I hit the ravine, I was negotiating the boulder strewn floor with an inch of snow blanketing everything.  I was fully in the grips of my disease.

Being overly motivated and yes, overly positive has many advantages, in my opinion.  I travel miles in beautiful woods before most people had even woken up.  I am able to spend time alone in the mountains.  Really alone without encountering any others.  Whether it be the time of day (or night), or the place I’m in for that time of year, I can be in the mountains with only myself or the people I choose to accompany me. When I’m walking up the trail on those approaches during early season, my surroundings seem quieter and I feel more meditative.  My mind clears itself of distractions without any effort on my part and my focus is simply on my breathing and my immediate surroundings in that moment.  The wind up high snakes its way through the stunted alpine spruce and produces a sound not unlike a distant river.   I linger blissfully in the idea that few had thought to see of there is ice there to climb and fewer still were motivated enough to trek that far.  When the walls of the ravine rise on either side of me, I feel small and humbled against the forces that created the mountains so long ago and the forces that are presently making themselves known. The wind, the cold air and the rough terrain.

Of course, the best prize of all is capturing the ice you’ve been hunting for.  On this day however, I stood in the half-frozen drainage looking at slush on top of running water.  Damn!  What was it?  Was there more water flowing this year than last?  Were the clouds blanketing the ravine and keeping it warmer than usual?  It was clear that the few cold nights just weren’t frigid enough.  In the end, the disappointment was brief as the morning had been sublime.  I made my way back down the trail and the air of late morning fought off the chill.  The ground radiated heat and melted the snow off the leaves along the path. I returned to my car having enjoyed the morning, but a deep rumble in my empty stomach would urge me back to the mountains soon.

Ok, maybe I am guilty of being too positive about the conditions.  But I’ll allow my disease to take over and I’ll allow my friends and family to call me crazy.  My body was glad for the sleep that night and my muscles were feeling the hours of climbing over giant slippery boulders.  Soon my episodes will become more frequent until I can get a few millimeters of metal into some thin ice.  And from that moment of hitting rock bottom with my malady, I’ll realize that from there, I’m only going UP.

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