Yesterday I returned to White Ledge in Albany, NH for the third time this Spring. This time paving on Rt 16 made parking at the campground more convenient. After timing the hike out there after multiple trips I think the campground approach is definitely better (as long as it is open).

1) You don’t have to park on a busy shoulder of Rt 16

2) You don’t have to travel so close to private property (though it isn’t signed)

3) There are bathrooms at the campground parking if needed

4) The hike is only about 5-10 minutes longer this way

Having climbed almost all the moderate routes on the Main Wall I wanted to check out the Right Wing and East Buttress areas. To get up to the Right Wing I figured we would climb the classic Trail of Tears and then rap down over to the area. I hadn’t climbed the first pitch of Trail of Tears yet and unfortunately it was seeping wet, so Tom led the first pitch of Manifest Destiny and then traversed up and over to the anchor at the start of the 2nd pitch. I started up the 2nd pitch of Trail of Tears until I could see the whole pitch above the crack was still soaked. I decided to climb the wet mossy ramp to the right and after a bit of groveling in slimy lichen & blueberry bushes reached the anchor at the top of White Riot. After bringing Tom up we scrambled up to the base of the Right Wing and hopped on pitch 2 & 3 of White Wonder.

I finished up the easy last pitch and we grabbed some lunch. Despite the gazillion black flies we decided to make our way over to the top of the East Buttress and see what we could find. Rapping from an obvious pine tree at the top of the buttress I located Shista and Chasing the Sun to our left. We only had one 60m rope so I stopped on a good sized ledge 100 feet down and we built a quick gear anchor. We then climbed back out a variation (I think) of Out of the Forest, just to the left of Men in Bright Lycra.

I’m going to ask Brad White if this was part of his recent route, Out of the Forest.

The blackflies were so abundant it was comical. This photo does not do the swarm justice:

We topped back out and made our way out to the White Ledge hiking trail which is really easy to pickup from the top. We took a left and climbed up over the top and back down to the campground, which took about 48 minutes. The views from up there give some great perspective on the Kancamagus areas. Found & Lost Ledges, Sundown, Rainbow, Eagle, Hedgehog, all look quite enticing from the backside of White Ledge. I think I’ll be spending a lot of time out there this season… once the Black Flies die down!

Tom is a bit of a purist when it comes to bug repellent. He survived the day without wearing any, where as I applied 30% DEET 3-4 times. Tucking his lightweight shell hoody under his helmet along with pants can make it reasonable. I have never bought a head net but was thinking one would be great on a day like that.

What strategies do you use? Au-natural? 100% Deet? Permethrin? Only ice climb? Share in the comments below!

The last couple weeks have been excellent for climbing with dry conditions and minimal bugs! After guiding two days last week, once at Cathedral and another at Square Ledge, I hooked up with AMGA Certified Rock Instructor and fellow EMS Schools Guide Anne Parameter for a quick day trip out to White Ledge in Albany. Anne had visited this cliff once before but wet conditions kept her and her partner grounded. This past Friday conditions were bone dry and perfect for a quick linkup of some of the new classic pitches that have cropped up here.

Pitch 1 of Manifest Destiny. A couple of bolts protect a short 5.8 face section. We then stepped left and enjoyed the classic 2nd pitch of Old Route.

Halfway up this pitch we merged into the 2nd half of Pitch 2 of Go West Young Man and belayed at its end at a gear anchor. I took the 3rd pitch of Go West, then Anne got us through the headwall, and I believe, merged back into the more mellow Go West 4th pitch after pulling a tough move more directly inline with the tree & bolted anchor at the top. I’m asking the FA’r, Brad White to verify if we were either on or off route here.

We only had a 70m rope which I think is pretty much required (unless you bring 2 ropes). One rappel back to the tree, another to a bolted anchor on Eminent Domain (full 35m rappel). Another to the bolted anchor on Old Route. And one more to our packs.

We then did the first pitch of Go West Young Man into the 2nd pitch of Trail of Tears. This pitch of Trail of Tears is super classic, the Mountain Project photo is taken from a great angle:

Anne cruised the 5.9 3rd pitch through the steeper upper wall.

There is a short moderate pitch after this but we decided to head down. With just the one rope that meant a bit of adventure rappelling down to a big pine between the Main Wall and the Right Wing area. Another rappel from here brought us to a fixed station on a large tree above the crags only sport route, White Riot. From there down to the bolted anchor on Go West, then one more to the deck.

7 pitches and 8 rappels and we were done by 2pm hiking out. This cliff is really awesome. It’s incredible it was largely left undeveloped until the efforts of Brad White & Matt Peer starting in 2011, and continued by the Chinos Mtn. Club. If has the feel of an outback cliff but is really only 35-45 minutes from the road. There’s definitely some more route potential and hopefully more traffic will keep things clean (it’s a surprising clean cliff to begin with). Get out there. Check it out!

And now, the winner of the Colonial Knife Review Giveaway!

Congratulations to Vinny of Bear Bait Baits Bears Blog. Other than having one hell of a tongue twisting blog name this AT Thru-Hiker had the good fortune to be drawn from 17 entries in this contest! Colonial Knife has provided me with a few more knives so we’ll be doing this give-away again soon!

Stay tuned and see you in the mountains!

Today I had the pleasure of accompanying George from Pennsylvania on a Mount Washington Climb. A retiree who has been seeking out cool experiences (summited Kilimanjaro with his 27 year old son last year), he was great company on our climb today. Despite a crazy bluebird weekend with tons of people in the ravines we had this Monday to ourselves and only 1 other EMS guided party. Low visibility from blowing snow and colder temps seemed to keep most people away, and other than one party that was finishing a Northern Presidential Traverse we were the only party to summit today. The alone-ness up there was refreshing after the crazy weekend that just transpired, especially considering a close friend and avalanche professional was caught and carried by a size-able avalanche, luckily escaping anything more than a bruised ego. I’ll link to some info on the 6 avalanches that occurred yesterday but first let’s recap today’s climb:

As we approached the summit cone visibility sank. I regretted not grabbing a half-dozen “route wands” to mark our way up to Split Rock, as that stretch is quite devoid of landmarks in the 50-100 foot visibility we were entering. I decided to improvise and used our trekking poles to mark our route. Essentially I climbed as high I could and still see the entrance of the trail through the Krumholtz. There I placed a trekking pole, basket up. I then did the same enroute to the cairn half up that slope, and twice more before Split Rock.

George mentioned he would never be able to describe what climbing in a true white-out felt like. There is no sense of direction or angle as the sky blends with the snow perfectly. Dozens of ascents in similar conditions helped and we nailed Split Rock in good time.

At this point we were about 50/50 as to making the summit but decided to see what the next corner would bring. Steady 50mph winds from the west were manageable, and 40 minutes later we gained the summit.

After a quick breather we made our way back down to Split Rock. The impromptu route wands came in clutch;

Back in North Conway we shared some of our adventure with George’s wife and parted ways. George is quite the adventurous guy and I hope to cross paths with him again!

I’ll end this trip report with a very brief word of caution. The end of March and beginning of April brings a dangerous mix of “Spring mind-set” mountain enthusiasts when Mount Washington is not quite ready to admit it is Spring. Yesterday, one year ago, brought one of the most historic avalanches on Mount Washington ever. This year, yesterday caught a seasoned Snow Ranger off guard who went for a long ride, along with 5 other avalanches! His personal account of the incident is here, and well worth a read.

I’d caution anyone entering avalanche terrain over the next couple of weeks to read both these accounts carefully and use due caution. Winter doesn’t end on Mount Washington until well into April (or maybe May).

Be safe, and see you in the mountains,

NEAlpineStart

I’m a big fan of holidays and wanted to do more than just cook up some corned beef and cabbage this year (though that is still happening thanks to my slow cooker). When I connected with long time local climber and recent friend Matty B our sights were set on an ambitious gully on Mt. Webster, The Green Chasm. A questionable higher summits forecast had me second guessing our ambition, and realizing there were some even more suitably named climbs in the protected Kinsman Notch area that I had yet to visit we adjusted our plans last minute and headed out to the west side of NH Route 112, 5 miles west of Woodstock, to see what Irish luck might bring us.

We started off with Pot O’ Gold, a short but steep Grade 4 right where the approach trail ends. This is a short 50ft route but quite fun. A solid fixed anchor on a tree at the top allowed a quick lower before Matty cleaned and lowered off.

We moved left to Shamrock, listed in the guidebook at 3+/4- in the guidebook. Matty made short work of a nice plastic line up the left side.

We moved left again to what I believe was Leprechaun’s Lament, grade 2+/3 in the guidebook. I took a mellow line up the left side then traversed right to a fixed anchor on a tree an dropped a top-rope over an attractive piece of vertical ice on the far right of this flow.

After these 3 warm ups we set our sights on The Beast, grade 4+, referred to in a previous guidebook as “Luck O’ The Irish“. The guidebooks said this route was about 400 yards left of Leprechaun’s Lament. After only 200 yards we passed a route we suspected might be The Beast, but given how close it was, and that it didn’t quite look like 2 pitches, we kept post-holing our way though actively sluffing slopes until we reached a bit of a knoll and realized we must have passed it. When we returned we confirmed The Beast was a bit sunbaked and much fatter than the guidebook photo. We opted for “The Ramp Route“, a very mellow Grade 3 up the left side that merges with the Beast.

Since we had a 60 meter rope I stopped just short of the top and belayed Matty up. The last 20 feet looked meh so we V-threaded off and called it a day.

A quick glissade down and short hike brought us to the cars where we enjoyed a quick “Green Head IPA” before hitting the road. I’d like to check out some of the stuff higher up the notch next time. I’ll also be posting a gear review shortly of a sweet new knife that has found a home on the back of my harness.

Stay tuned for a review of the Colonial Ameba Knife Review and Happy Saint Patricks Day!

What a great start we were off to this year for both skiing & ice climbing! Hard to believe that the ice climbing season started for many of us a month and a half ago! Apparently Santa didn’t get my letter though for instead of a few feet of powder we were all delivered many inches of rain over a very warm three days which pretty much pushed the “reset” button on our winter playground.

Hope is on the horizon for 2015 though! Arctic cold has dropped our daytime temps about 50 degrees in just the last two days! On Monday I guided two young guys from New York up a very thin Willey’s Slide in Crawford Notch. I have never been on it in such lean conditions and it was actually pretty fun, though I could have left the ice screws at home. We hugged climber’s left the whole way and got a couple half pitches of actual ice climbing towards the top. The gushing waterfall 2/3 of the way up was pretty impressive, especially when the winds kicked up and sent the water sideways!

The next day Erin, Brandon, Travis, and Matt all joined me for an assault on Mount Washington. The weather forecast spoke of “coldest air of the season” and wind chills down to around -48. Sounded like it may be a challenging day on the hill, but the winds died down early enough in the day and with careful moisture management and pacing we summit-ed at about 12:40 then descended back down the Summer Lion’s Head Trail to the cars in only 2.5 hours. The entire trip was done in micro-spikes (with crampons in reserve) and a short arm-wrap rappel on the most technical step of the route.

So despite the disappointing thaw it looks like it will be a distant memory soon. Continued cold is on tap for the first few days of 2015 and snow is likely for Saturday & Sunday. That is especially welcome as our second avalanche course of the season starts Friday! So ciao 2014, you were a pretty decent year for climbing conditions. Let’s usher in some great skiing & climbing for the start of 2015!

Happy New Year & See You in the Mountains!

Old man Winter has established his foothold here in the Whites. Intrepid climbers have been out sniffing out early season ice for almost a month. I got out before Thanksgiving to climb Pinnacle Gully in great early season conditions. I also grabbed my first two ski days of the 2014/15 season, opening day (Nov 9th) at Wildcat and a couple weeks later at Bretton Woods. Even with 2 days already ticked I was a bit envious of some Facebook friends Thanksgiving Day powder skiing shots but time spent down south with family was well worth it!

Today wraps up a trifecta of guide related workshops and round-tables and I wanted to share a quick recap of each.

On November 8th the 3rd Annual Eastern Snow Avalanche Workshop was held at the new venue in Bartlett, NH. Attendance was strong with over 100 snow-minded folks from recreational to professional listening in on a diverse amount of topics. If you are really bummed you missed it (and you should be if you like playing in snow), you can get quite a bit of info from the presentations thanks to a Tetons Gravity forum member taking (and sharing) extremely detailed notes of the proceedings. You can find them here.

Yesterday the American Mountain Guide Association held a round table discussion at the Eastern Mountain Sports North Conway Climbing School location. You probably have heard of the AMGA at some point if you are reading this blog. Long story short, their mission is “To inspire and support a culture of American mountain craft.” It goes much deeper than that, but the gist of this gathering of 43 instructors, guides, aspiring guides, etc. was to solicit feedback on how the AMGA could better represent the Northeastern “guide” who is trying to balance the demands of seasonal work, the expense of certification, and the potential ROI “Return On Investment”. This is of particular interest to those who practice the art of guiding in a state with almost no regulation, “Live Free or Die” New Hampshire!

A significant portion of the evening was spent in 7 “break out” groups trying to answer 3 questions all related to how the AMGA can better help the Northeastern guide or guide business.

Finally, today, EMS Schools had an internal guide meeting with 12 guides who operate out of Connecticut, New Paltz, NY, Lake Placid NY, and of course North Conway, NH. A new polished “Guides Manual” was distributed and covered operating protocols from accident response and AMGA endorsed terrain use guidelines to continued education and training based incentives. It provoked some positive discussion and was a solid primer for scheduled field training coming up over the next few weeks.

So all in all what does this mean? I can’t wait for the winter season to go full swing! Snow is in the forecast (1 to 3 inches this Friday, more in long range forecast), which is great, as our first avalanche course of the season is only 15 days away! Almost half of our scheduled courses for this season have already sold out! If you were thinking about taking an avalanche course this winter do not put signing up off any longer! You can see what dates are available and reserve your spot right here.

Here’s to a great Holiday Season and a rewarding winter season! See you on the mountain!