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December 17, 2015
Hi Folks,
Wednesday was a beautiful day, but don’t you know that I had to drive down to Boston and back to pick up my bass guitar that was getting the frets dressed. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, that’s like sharpening your ice axe picks or screws. It’s something that has to be done every 4-5 years, depending on how much you play. And considering I play this bass 4-6 times a week, and it hasn’t been done in 10 years, let’s just say it was like climbing on nubs!
Several of my friends went climbing at LongStack that day and I was pretty bummed when I saw the pictures, ’cause it was gorgeous! After a couple of days of rain, I was getting pretty antsy, but there was nothing I could do. Today is a real washout, literally, with more fog and drizzle all day long. [sigh] The only good thing is that it’s getting more needed water in the system for when it actually does get cold.
You know that things are not going your way, winter wise, when you see people on the golf course down just past Topsfield! With 68 degrees in the Boston area, and not a speck of snow anywhere, ice climbing and skiing is not even on anyone’s radar right now. That means that the winter-related businesses here in NH are all sucking on pond-water right now. The general consensus is that if we have a good Xmas vacation 10 days, we’ll all be OK, business wise. But that’s not looking as if it’s going to happen this year. At least not from what I’m seeing. Xmas is only 8 daze away and the current prediction is for 50+ on that day! Go figure…
Frankenstein_amphitheater.jpg
TuckermanRavine.jpg
Thanks to Matt Bowman for the Tucks photo. Here is a video taken by him of Tucks from today. Tho there is a little ice, it’s not very promising. He said that it wasn’t thick enough to even solo around on!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDcdFhUzg80
span class="reportSectionHeader">VALLEY CYCLING:
I rode several times last week and weekend, and it was all good. Almost everything on the East and West sides are in amazing shape for this time of year. On Sunday a group of us did 8 miles on the East side, riding Sticks & Stones, Pillar To Pond, Muffler, Chutes & Ladders, Rattlesnake and the Knot. It was all just fine, with only a tiny amount of mud on P2P. I don’t know how long this is going to last, but I plan on taking advantage of it for as long as I can.
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
| Climbers seem to forget that we said in our introduction that there were simply '50 classic routes', not 'the 50 classics'. We chose 50 from a list of about 120. Only a torturer will ever pry loose from our lips the names of those other 70 classics... |
| Steve Roper |
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