January 29, 2004

Hi Folks,

Last Sunday, January 25th, was the 22nd anniversary of the death of Albert Dow. Albert was a member of the local Mountain Rescue Service who was killed in an avalanche at night in Huntington Ravine while searching for 2 lost climbers, Jeffrey Batzer and Hugh Herr. A number of local climbers made the trip up to the rescue cache in Huntington Ravine that bears his name to rededicate the cache and honor him with a new plaque. The inscription on the new plaque reads:

Albert Dow
Climber* Rescuer * Friend
Killed in an avalanche while on
a search for a fellow climber.
January 25, 1982.

unveiling the plaque
the gathered group

I won't go into who Albert was, and the details of what took place that night in this newsletter. You can look through the Webster guidebook and get a sense of the kind of climber that Albert was, and hunt down the copy of Accidents in North American Mountaineering that details the events of that night.

Several of the ten who had gathered spoke about the Albert the man, about friendship, about what he did and about what he meant to them. Even after 22 years it was obvious that he has not been forgotten. I would say that the thoughts came down to something like this...

Albert Dow was a man, a climber, and a person who loved the mountains. He was a member of the local Mountain Rescue Service. The MRS is about climbers, helping people in the mountains. Why, because as one person said; "Quite frankly it might just as easily be one of us up there." We all make decisions, and those decisions may not always, in hindsight, be the right ones. But, when it comes doing what needs to be done, the members of the MRS (and all of the local and regional rescue organizations for that matter) step up to the plate. Albert understood what all this meant and he took it seriously. That's why he was out there in the middle of the night searching for those 2 lost climbers. Searching for 2 of our own! Albert died in the service of the ideals that he believed in. There are many around here who also feel the same way and several of them took the time to remember Albert that day. I believe that they will never stop remembering.

Special thanks to Joe Lentini for devising the wording and arranging for the plaque.

Statistics:
I hadn't looked at the web statistics for NEClimbs for several months. I don't usually pay a whole lot of attention to statistics, it's too easy to get caught up in them, but a potential advertiser asked me for some information and I had to supply it. Actually that information, and some other that I also looked into, was quite interesting.

Since last May, the average daily unique visits for the site has increased from 364 to 451. That's almost a 24% increase in 8 months! And although I don't put much into it as a statistic, we're averaging over 660,000 "hits" a month. In fact over the last 8 months we've had over 6 MILLION hits! In addition the Forum has gone from around 300 registered members to 486 and the White Mountain Report email subscriber list has increased to over 460. Not too shabby for a little old regional web site. <grin> Thanks to all of you who are participating and making it happen.

Cautionary Tale:
I suppose you could consider this a prologue to the State-O-The-Ice... Remember the episode at the hanging Garden a few weeks ago? Well, when it is as cold as it has been, the quality of the ice becomes substantially harder and even more brittle than you might think. Of course that means that it is really fragile, even the really big stuff. Widows Walk at Frankenstein has finally touched down. This is one of those things that many people wait anxiously for every year, and it doesn't always happen. Well this year, there also was a drip to the right that didn't quite touch, but looked pretty reasonable. Several of the locals have been eyeing it for the past week or so and drooling a bit. So on Saturday, when it was really cold and there was almost no one out climbing, a couple of parties decided to have a look. One went up to Widow's and decided it wasn't for them, and then checked out the big column just to the right of Cave Route. While messing with it, it cracked across! They immediately decided it wasn't for them. A second party rapped down over the right hand drip, looking it over closely. Then the leader went up behind it and tapped on it prior to launching up. The entire drip cracked off near the top, and toppled to the ground. You can see the place where it was in this week's pictures. Fortunately the belayer was out of the way and very fortunately the huge piece of ice fell outward, and not in. Hmmm... Word to the wise!

Selected Ice Conditions effective March 21, 2019
It's been a wonderful ice season, but Spring is officially here folks. Thus the sun is strong so it's warm during the day, but it's cold at night. And of course that means that climbs in the full sun are crap, but anything in the shade can still be good and maybe even building a bit. Sure, Standard Route is still massive, but the ice isn't all that good IMO. I was up there today and thought the ice above the cave was punky! Climbs in the reflector oven that is the Amphitheater are a mess now and honestly in my mind it's not a smart place to be. We're entering a time when the best climbing will be up high in the Ravine. And of course the longer days make it a great time to be up there. From here on out I'm only going to be posting pictures of things I think are in climbable shape, and that's a dwindling supply.
	Huntington Ravine	IN mostly
	Repentance	OUT
	Standard Route	climbable, but getting punky
	Dracula	IN - bring your snorkle
For the full current conditions report, CLICK HERE

Have fun and climb safe,

Al Hospers
The White Mountain Report
North Conway, New Hampshire