Thursday November 29, 2007

Climbers on Snot Rocket

I took a drive today up to Crawford Notch and a short hike down the railroad tracks at Frankenstein Cliffs. My first impression is that there is a lot of ice for late November and there is climbable stuff in the notch. The ice though for the most part did not get a lot thicker from last week. It seems the rain and warmth on Monday washed away most of the gains we made from the cold weekend. The forecast temperatures for the next ten days however are very favorable with no real warm up predicted. If this forecast holds we may be seeing the true start to the ice season. As it stands it looks as if there will be a fair number of things to do both in the ravines and in Crawford Notch.

The climbs that are doing the best are the ones that traditionally have low water flows. Things with a high flow have so much water that they're having a hard time forming. Things like the gullies on Mount Willard have quite a bit of ice as does Cinema. Their south facing nature may be problematic if it gets sunny. There will be things on Mount Willard that will be good for the weekend, just maybe not the big name routes.

The Amphitheater at Frankenstein has very little ice. Standard route looks climbable but still has a lot of water flowing down the center, the drier right side is looking pretty good. A combination of the right side of Standard with the Penguin Finish would be a good bet this weekend for the intermediate to advanced leader. For some top-roping the Trestle Mixed Routes will be a good place to look for the weekend. All of these recommendations however were still a bit thin today but I expect them to be building the next couple of nights and improve enough to be climbable for the weekend.

It's hard to be optimistic for the weekend given how early it still is but what I saw was a lot of routes on the threshold and cold temperatures in the forecast, so it could be quite a good early December weekend. Last week I said "I wouldn't be surprised if the Dike gets done quite a few times" and it seems like it did. This weekend or early next week it wouldn't surprise me if Welcome to the Machine gets done. Let see it's still early and ice is pretty fickle.

I won't be able to do any reports for awhile and it won't be me climbing Welcome to the Machine, Jane and I will be going for a warm weather sport climbing vacation leaving this weekend. We are heading to Tenerife, Canary Islands so I won't have a clue what the ice here will be next week. If you want to contact me for some ice climbing in the later half of December I will be checking e-mail but won't be able to return phone messages. I'll try to do a short report from Tenerife on the climbing there but I doubt it will have anything to do with ice! I will be anxious to swings some tools when I get back though.

Standard Route

Cinema and Great Madness

Gullies #1, #2, #2.5 and #3 (Great Madness)

Nameless Flow to the right of Hitchcock Gully

Penguin

Dracula

Welcome to the Machine

Right side of Standard

Trestle Mixed Routes

Wednesday November 28, 2007

I did another tour of the ravines today. What I saw was good ice in both ravines. The rain and warmth have had an impact and there is still a lot of water flowing but the ice was thicker and there was more of it. The biggest impact the rain has had was on the snow. This was particularly evident on the Tuckeman Ravine Trail up to Hermit Lake. The trail was pretty icy and there was a thin layer of snow making the footing, particularly on the descent, difficult.

The bottom line is that there is a number of things to climb and with the current weather forecast it will only get better. The only but is that there is not much snow so some of the gullies in Huntington are a little brushy. The two most commonly done early season routes though, Pinnacle and Odell's are pretty good with Odell's having a good snow gully on the top section.

I will try to get up to Crawford Notch tomorrow to see how things are progressing there. Enjoy the pictures.

Huntington Ravine Climbs

Odell's Gully

North Gully

Pinacle Gully

Central Gully

Tuckerman Ravine Climbs

Left of Left

The Dihedral

Center Headwall

The Main Flows of the Center Headwall

An Icy Tuckerman Ravine

Left Gully

Friday November 23, 2007

An icy looking Mount Willard

I took a drive today up to Crawford Notch and went for a short walk down the RR Tracks at Frankenstein. What I saw was very encouraging! There was a lot of ice in the notch, it wasn't very thick but it was getting close to climbable. From what I could tell most of the ice had formed last night as it looked fresh. It is predicted to stay cold for the rest of the weekend and that means the ice will grow more tonight and that may make some climbs in Crawford Notch doable this weekend.

Given what I saw in Crawfords, I suspect the ravines are as good as they have been and getting better. I also wouldn't be surprised if the Dike gets done quite a few times this weekend. It looks like we are going to get a bit of a warm up on Monday and Tuesday then back to cold. From what I can tell the cold snaps are getting longer with the warm ups not as warm and not lasting as long.

We typically get a bit of a roller coaster of conditions this time of year but as average seasons go, this seems right on schedule.

So the bottom line is that you will certainly find early season ice in the Ravines to climb and there may be a few things in Crawford Notch to do as well. Remember though, we are talking about early season ice that is new so expect thin undermined ice that will have variable protection.

Cinema Gully

Standard

Penguin

Dracula

 

Wednesday November 21, 2007

Jane and friends at mile 9

I returned from Philadelphia late on Monday, a beautiful day and the last time I've seen the sun. My wife Jane and I had a good time in Philadelphia and she had a good run. This was her first marathon and she achieved her goal of breaking 4 hours 30 minutes with a time of 4:24. I want to thank everyone that
e mailed their good wishes to Jane.

I wanted to go into the ravines yesterday (Tuesday) but the mountain was in the fog so I put it off till today. Unfortunately the mountain was still in the clouds with a light freezing rain and my visibility was limited. I took a few pictures and after cleaning them up with the magic of digital photo post production you can see the ice pretty well.

My general impression of the ice is that it has improved since last week. I also noticed quite a bit more snow, particularly in Tuckerman Ravine. It seems that the rain last Thursday was more than made up for by the cold and snow Friday and Saturday. The one qualifier I would add is that there is a lot of water flowing and the little I could see it seemed that the ice was a bit more undermined than it had been.

It appears we are in the same kind of cycle that we were in last week. Today was warm and it is predicted to rain tomorrow then get colder for Friday and the weekend. Matter of fact, the temperature at Hermit Lake today at around 3pm was the same as a week ago, 42 degrees. My impression though is that we won't get as much rain as we did last week. We probably won't get as much snow either. So to quote my blog from last week; "This mixed bag of weather could make things worse on the short term and then have things start to get better with the weekend a toss up. My guess is that Sunday seems at this point to be the best bet". I must say though that I have more hope for Saturday this week than I did last.

I will try to get to Frankenstein on Friday. I figure it will be worth the look given what I saw on the roadcuts in Pinkham. The ice on the roadcuts was pretty impressive and looked climbable. Let's hope for a gentle rain and a good cold snap. If that happens we will have some ice down low to climb soon!

I hope everyone has a Happy Thanksgiving!

Pinnacle

Base of Diagonal and the Havard Buldge

Tuckerman Ravine Trail between Hermit Lake and the Huntington Fire Road

Independence Hall Philadelphia Where the revolt was declared and the Constitution born

 

Wednesday November 14, 2007

I went for another hike today to check conditions. I needed to get out today for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to get a good view of the ravines before the upcoming storm that is predicted for Thursday and Friday. Also, I will be leaving town at the end of the week to watch my wife Jane run the Philadelphia Marathon.

Because the weather was warm I figured the ravines were the only place worth checking out. I followed the same route I did on the 9th, that allowed me to get a good view of both ravines. What I first noticed was that the footing was for the most part much easier than on Friday. The Lower Tuckerman Ravine Trail was a bit icier but the track to the base of Pinnacle and across the Alpine Garden was much easier. This easier footing showed in my time to do the loop, by my calculation I was 20% faster today than I was on Friday. What I found for ice was not to surprising, it had generally gotten thicker. I will let the pictures below speak for themselves. On a few of them I have made them clickable so you can get a large photo to better see the ice.

Its hard to make predictions for this weekend at this time. It looks like we are going to get rain tonight and tomorrow but cold is predicted to return on Friday with a partly cloudy weekend. This mixed bag of weather could make things worse on the short term and then have things start to get better with the weekend a toss up. My guess is that Sunday seems at this point to be the best bet. Just to give you an idea how likely the ravines will get rain, when I was at Hermit Lake at 3 PM it was 42 Degrees and overcast. At least the pictures below will give you some idea what it was like today before the rain.

Odell's

Central

Yale

Pinnacle

The Upper Pillars of Tuckerman Ravine

Tuckerman Ravine

Left of Left in Tuckerman Ravine

 

Friday November 9, 2007

A snowy Huntington Ravine

Well the rock season is pretty much over and Mount Washington has significant snow on it. I have been hearing that people had been ice climbing in Huntington and Tuckerman Ravines. It seems both Pinnacle and Odell's have been climbed in Huntington and some lines have been done in Tuckerman's.

Today was the first day we have had visibility since the snow storm that hit Mount Washington on Tuesday. On that day the summit reported about 10 inches of snow. I wanted to check out the conditions today but to be honest I do not like pushing the early season ice, so I wasn't planning on doing any climbing. My plan was to go for a hike up through Huntington to the Alpine Garden then down through Tuckerman Ravine. I figured if I traveled light I would be able to cover more ground and get a good feel for the conditions. I got my gear together this morning and setup my screw boots. The gear I used was identical to the gear I wore and carried on my one day Presidential Traverse last February, except for the snowshoes. You can check out that gear here.

The junction of the Tuckerman Ravine Trail and Huntington Fire Road

After getting my gear together I headed up to Pinkham and started hiking up around noon. Although the mountain looked snowy there was no snow at Pinkham. I started up and the trail was pretty dry with only small patches of ice here and there. A little more than a mile later I was in the snow. Soon after that the trail was fully covered and it was looking pretty wintery by the time I got to the Huntington Fire Road. A little while later I was at the base of Huntington.

Up to this point the footing was pretty good but as is typical for this time of year the footing got very difficult from here. The terrain varied from snow covered rocks to knee deep postholing. As I climbed higher I thought about how difficult it would be to get an injured climber down. There is no question that early season ice in Huntington is not just about the difficulty of the climb but also the approach.

The condition of the climbs are pretty good; I was particularly impressed with the amount of ice in Pinnacle. The other climbs were still pretty brushy but coming along. The only route that I thought was worth the hike (maybe) was Pinnacle.

I continued to hike up the trail to the Alpine Garden. The upper Huntington Ravine Trail was challenging but not to difficult from a climber's perspective. The traverse across the Alpine Garden was very snowy and had no tracks. I thought I saw remnants of tracks that might have blown in but it was hard to tell if anyone had walked this since the storm. It was slow going and although the terrain here is flatter, the footing was still difficult.

Things got much easier once I arrived at the top of Tuckerman Ravine. The trail down the ravine was broken out and pretty easy. There were three people ice climbing as I walked down the trail. The conditions in Tuckerman were looking pretty good but the ice was still thin and the upper pillars looked a bit scary. Some ice had fallen from the Sluice area and crossed the trail. The trail down to Hermit Lake was easy.

My opinion of the conditions is that it is still very early. Pinnacle seemed doable but very thin and the approach is very difficult and with that type of footing it makes it a serious undertaking. Tuckerman definitely has some easy and moderate lines but on a warm or sunny day and it looks like this weekend may be pretty sunny, there is some big hanging ice above that makes it important to pick a line that is not underneath it (if that is even possible).

If things stay cold for the next week and that's a big if, the climbing could get really good next weekend (Nov 17-18).

Tough footing in Huntington Ravine

Pinnacle

A clearly defined snow line on Wildcat

Tough walking n the Alpine Garden

Lots of ice hanging overhead in Tuckerman Ravine

Another view of the hanging ice, note the climbers

The Open Book in Tuckerman Ravine

Good advice!