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November 5, 2020
Hi Folks,
I know everyone is all excited about the upcoming and inevitability of the 2021 ice season. But ya all know that winter will be here soon enough, plus up here in the hinterlands it lasts a LONG time. So frankly I've personally been hoping we get a blast of Indian Summer, and apparently my wish has been granted. We're headed into a gloriously extended stretch of weather that just screams rock climbing!
http://www.neclimbs.com/wmr_pix/20201105/weather.jpg
Yes, yes, yes... I know that folks have been up in Tucks, the Dike has been climbed multiple times and even Parasol Gully up in Dixville has been done already. [go figure]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=iLcfNQ4Q1W8
But for me, being able to climb in warm rock on a sunny and crisp mid-November day has that certain "allure". And yes Matty, I promise will get my ice gear together this week. I've just been putting it off, but I'll make sure it's all ready to go. In the meantime tho, I'm going to grab what I can, while I can. And I think you should too!
http://www.neclimbs.com/wmr_pix/20201105/Cathedral-morning-moon.jpg
Bear Notch and Hurricane Mountain Roads are now both officially closed for the season and I bet Evans Notch is closed too. I haven't heard about Passaconaway, but I would suspect it's still open.
I know I said that last week's gig with guitar master Denny Breau would be my last of the season, but I lied! Actually I got a call last night from Denny last night saying that we have one more outdoors gig at Lenny's in Westford Maine on Saturday from 4-7. If you haven't seen Denny, you should. We will be joined by Craig Bryan, a great drummer who plays in my bands. Lenny's has no cover charge, great food and an excellent staff.
http://www.neclimbs.com/wmr_pix/20201105/Lennys.jpg
Folks - It's November 5th, and it's time for the White Mountain ICE Report. I've been writing the Report for 22 years, since 1998 and I hope you find it useful. And if you do, I'd appreciate a small donation to support what I do. As always, absolutely any amount is welcome, and you can easily go ON LINE and make your donation via PayPal. And you don't really even need a PayPal account, you can use almost any credit card. Just click the link below:
http://www.neclimbs.com/index.php?PageName=donation_fundraiser
Of course you can also contribute via check or money order if you like. Make it out to Al Hospers and send it here:
NEClimbs
92 Bow Lane
North Conway, NH 03860
The time and expense of the running and maintaining NEClimbs.com and putting out The White Mountain Report continue all year. But in the winter I put in at least 5 hours every Thursday driving up into the Notch, taking the pictures, processing them, writing the Report, posting the pix on NEClimbs and FaceBook and putting out the email newsletter Report. It's an effort... PLEASE REMEMBER, it's your contribution that makes this newsletter and the NEClimbs web site viable.
BTW You can see almost all of the Reports on NEClimbs.com archived from as far back as September of 1999! To get a sense of the popularity of the site, current traffic as of October 29 2020 on NEClimbs.com is about 126,000 UNIQUE visits a day, generating almost 2 million monthly "HITS". The White Mountain Report newsletter goes out every week to over 1,200 subscribers weekly!
Thank you once again for your support...
http://www.neclimbs.com/index.php?PageName=donation_paypal
The numbers are climbing friends. There are now 9,887,514 confirmed cases in the US, 231,034 of your fellow American citizens are dead with 1,221,781 reported deaths world-wide from the Novel Corona Virus as of Thursday November 5th! yesterday New Hampshire alone had had 252 new cases of the virus reported on Wednesday and 2 new deaths and our positivity rate is 1.8%, again up from last week.
Two new outbreaks at long-term care facilities were reported. Health Commissioner Lori Shibinette said eight residents and seven staff members at St. Ann's Rehabilitation and Nursing Center in Dover have tested positive for COVID-19. Eight residents and three staff members at Woodlawn Care Center in Newport have also tested positive. In addition there was also an outbreak at Mt. Prospect Academy, a residential youth treatment center in Plymouth where nine residents and 11 staff members have tested positive!
I know folks are thinking about climbing in Vermont this winter, like at Smuggs or Lake Willoughby. I urge you to look at this site to see what the restrictions are at this time.
https://accd.vermont.gov/covid-19/restart/cross-state-travel
The Johns Hopkins COVID-19 tracking map:
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/us-map
I find JHU's Daily COVID-19 Data in Motion report to be very informative. It shares critical data on COVID-19 from the last 24 hours in a short 1 minute animated video format.
https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/covid-19-daily-video
WEAR A MASK, SANITIZE AND STAY PHYSICALLY DISTANT FRIENDS!
REMEMBER - WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER
I've been riding a bit this past week, mostly close to home. I did a ride in the woods on Monday and the wind was gusting as high as 40 mph and really howling. There was a fair amount of blowdown everywhere and it really probably wasn't the best idea to be out and about at that time. Today a friend took me on the new connector that goes from Cranmore all the way over to the water tower on Hurricane Mt Road. It's a 2 way trail, almost a road, with about 500' of climbing. This is a very nice addition to the area. Afterwards we did a short explore off the Cranmore access road and then came back via the Whittaker Woods power line trail. It was a fun loop and is highly recommended.
http://www.neclimbs.com/wmr_pix/20201105/bike.jpg
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:
http://www.neclimbs.com/mobile
Check it out and if you have issues on your specific phone, please feel free to let me know.
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:
http://www.facebook.com/NEClimbs/
Remember - climb hard, ride the steep stuff, stay safe and above all BE NICE,
Al Hospers
The White Mountain Report
North Conway, New Hampshire
| There are very, very few ice climbs in the world that are actually hard, but these mixed climbs, on the other hand, they were very hard. You could pitch on them... |
| Will Gadd |
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