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I’ve been spending almost all my available time lately riding my fat tire bike everywhere I can. On Tuesday I combined riding and climbing by riding the bike down to the north end of Cathedral and climbing Thresher. It wasn’t a big ride, but it was fun nonetheless, and I could do them both together in about an hour. Not too bad I would say. People ask me a lot why I ride by myself and climb by myself in the winter. The real reason is not anti-social tendencies, it’s just all about the time.
I have a lot going on these days. Between my family, some software work that I do, practicing and playing the bass, recording music and general other stuff, life is very busy. One thing I really like about the bike is that I can head out, right out my back door, and get a serious pump in 1-2 hours. I can run out and jump on some ice at the North End, or even some stuff at Frankenstein or Mt Willard, and grab something fun all by myself in a similar amount of time. Most of the people I know who go climbing, with the possible exception of George Hurley, want to be out all day. I’ll do that occasionally, but not too often. It’s one of the reasons that I don’t do the big road bike rides like I used to. I still love those 80-100 mile rides, but I can get close to the same level of fun out of riding the 30 mile Bear Notch loop in a bit over 2 hours. really, it’s just all about the time. [grin]
After I took my pictures this morning I decided to head to Frankenstein and run up something. Standard had looked pretty good from the road, so I figured I’d do the first pitch, to the cave, rap off and be home pretty quickly. The temps were in the lot-mid 30’s and no breeze, so I warmed quickly as I walked the tracks. As always, when I’m hiking by myself, I start out kind of slow but pick up the pace fairly quickly. I paused to examine the climbs in the amphitheater as I waled over the trestle, and they looked just about as expected. The sun is giving them a beating and IMO they’re not going to be around much longer. The only thing in that area that I thought looked “good” was Lost In The Forest. It still looked very fat and blue.
As I got to where I could see the base of Standard I also saw 2 folks gearing up by the tracks. It turns out that it was 2 of my friends Bob & Chris, there like me to grab one of the last days of fat ice in the lower elevations. We trudged up the hill together and while they got roped up, I headed up to the cave. The ice was still fat and solid, really not punky at all. I got up to the cave and it was really amazing. Although it was probably in the upper 30’s, because it was cloudy there was no dripping at all. In fact I couldn’t even hear any water running. Chris led up, making short work of his pitch, and I rapped just before Bob followed. I waved goodbye as I headed back to my pack and out on the tracks to my car. By now it had warmed up even more and I broke a sweat as I went. It’s been a really great winter and I thought to myself that this truly may be the last weekend for lower elevation ice. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, hey, it’s time to think about Huntington Ravine and rock season.
Avalanche!:
While it looks great up on our Mountain, and it’s a great time to be up there recreating, it’s also a potentially dangerous time. On the 29th there were 6 separate avalanche events on the mountain, one even involving a snow ranger! The descriptions by the Avalanche Center describe the day’s festivities quite well:
As always, more pix are on the NEClimbs Ice Report and Facebook.
Mobile Version Of NEClimbs:
Up on one of the Mount Washington Valley's finest crags and want to know what that climb you're looking at is? Or maybe you're on your way up from Boston and want to check out the Ice Report for your upcoming weekend plans. Or more likely, you're at work just want to daydream about your next adventure. Well if you have a smart phone handy, you can get to NEClimbs from anywhere you have cell service. While it doesn't offer every single feature of the site and it's not an "app", in mobile form, it does do a whole lot and is very useful. Here is the live link to the mobile version of NEClimbs:
Check it out and if you have issues on your specific phone, please feel free to let me know.
NEClimbs & White Mountain Report On Facebook:
Join us and LIKE us on Facebook. I'll try and post interesting pix every Thursday and the latest Ice Report in the season, tho certainly not the whole Report. Here's where you can check it out:
Climbing is a very dangerous sport. You can get hurt or even kill yourself. When you go climbing, you do so of your own free will. Everything on this site is to be taken with a grain of salt. Don't blame us if you get up some totally heinous route, in over your head and fall and hurt yourself.
