August 12, 2004

Hi Folks,

I think it's been 7 or 8 years since I've bought a pair of sunglasses. That's not to say I don't have any, you understand. In fact I usually have several pair hanging around the house at any given time. My favorites for climbing right now are a pair of dark-brown, horn-rim plastic jobbies. They're not fancy, but they do the job just fine. For riding I sport a pair of electric-blue Optic Nerves that make me appear far more stylish that I actually am. Of course I also have a pair of nice mirror ones that give me that southern Smokie look, and... But I digress. The operative word in the first sentence of this humble narrative is "bought".

Ever since I moved up north and started spending a lot of time outdoors I keep finding sunglasses. That's right, it seems like I'm always just bopping along somewhere and the next thing I know I look down and there's a pair of sunglasses on the ground, on a rock, hanging in a tree, on a ledge, who knows. You would not believe the places I find them. Mostly they aren't in the logical places, like on a rock by the start of the Saigon's - oh no. It's more like I'm thrashing through the woods off the Kanc trying to find Lost Ledge with my 5 year old in tow, and right in front of my face is a pair of mirror babies hung up in a bush! Then I'm pulled over frantically trying to change a tire on my bike up in Jackson before it rains, and there are a pair of silver Oakley's sitting on the railing alongside the road. It's like someone just puts them there for me to find.

This winter I was up in Canada with my wife and we were at a department store, just wasting time. Not really looking to buy anything, mind you. Of course I spot these really cool pair of wrap-around glasses that actually looked good on me and I just have to have 'em. I wore them on the trip and pretty much everywhere else this spring, relegating my "found" ones to the shelf. But wouldn't you figure, one day on a long bike ride up the Kanc I hung my babies on my shirt 'cause it was getting cloudy & dark and they fell off along side the road. I noticed it as soon as I got home & took off in the truck to retrace my path where I thought they probably had fallen off. Well of course they were nowhere to be found and I've figured that there is someone out there who found their new FAVE glasses, thanks to me. Heck, maybe it's you...

The electric blue ones are getting a bit scratched up and the Oakley's broke about a week ago, so I'm putting out the vibe that it's time for a new pair and this time I want some Rudy Project Graal - the official sunglass of the Tour de France! You better keep yours from slipping out of your pocket or falling off your hat, cause if they do they'll be mine!

Adopt-a-Crag Challenge Update - from the Access Fund:
There is still time to sign up to be a part of this year’s Adopt-a-Crag. Our goal is to support 89 Adopt-a-Crags around the country. If we were to climb Yosemite’s Half Dome, Northwest Face (23 pitches), The Nose (31 pitches), and Salathe Wall (35 pitches) in a day, we would complete 89 pitches of climbing. As with all dreams and goals, we can’t do it alone. We need you to help us reach our goal. To date we have 50 events. We are over half-way to our goal. We have topped-out on Half-Dome, successful mastered the Changing Corners pitch and should top out soon.

Adopt-a-Crag is an excellent an avenue for building alliances and partnerships and to plan for the future. Be it a crag clean-up of 8 volunteers or a fundraiser, comp, and trail work day with 100 volunteers Adopt-a-Crag is about giving back to those places we love and use on a regular basis Adopt-a-Crag inspires activism, advocacy, volunteerism, and stewardship. In the four years since the inception of Adopt-a-Crag, climbers around the country have built and restored thousands of miles of trails, hauled tons of trash, and completed thousands of conservation initiatives.
 
This year we have expanded Adopt-a-Crag to encompass the entire month of September.  We made this change to encourage organizers to schedule their Adopt-a-Crag event on a day that works best for their community and to partner with other organizations. As in the past, you can get all your Adopt-a-Crag information and register online at www.AccessFund.org. To organize your own Adopt-a-Crag, contact Deanne at deanne@accessfund.org.

A Big NEClimbs Congrats:
In case you didn't catch it, local climber, photographer and part-time IME employee Ann Skidmore pretty much cleaned up in this year's Climbing Magazine photo competition. Her shots are classy, extremely well crafted and I personally think that she's got a great future. I saw her slideshow a few weeks ago at Women's Rock Day. The shots were impressive and on top of that she was enthusiastic and articulate. I'm confident that we're going to see a lot more of this lady's work in the mags in the near future. Nice job Anne.

Competitive Tree Climbing:
Tired of sport climbing comps? Well here's a new one... The International Tree Climbing Championships is being held in West Park on the North Side of Charolette. Organized by the International Society of Arboriculture and taking place this past weekend, it featured 36 men and 12 women competing in five events such as the secured footlock climb, belayed speed climb, and throwline event. Hmmm, sounds like great fun.

New at NEClimbs:
There was lots more work done on the Routes section this week, some you can't see, some you can. Please check it out. Lots of new routes were added and better ways of looking at stuff. It's really useful to be able to sort all the routes by grade or by name or crag. I'll be adding in the GPS UTM readings very soon for many of the crags I've included, as the structure is there for it. It would be really neat to have it be able to link to some topo site on-line like Terraserver.com to display a map. I'm checking it out and I'm pretty sure it's possible. Now that would be every cool!

Also, if anyone has pictures for routes that don't have any, let me know. I only have a few for places like Lost Horizon and I'd love to get more. Lost Ledge, Found Ledge, Woodchuck, and the like would be great too. In addition, if there are specific routes you think should definitely be added, let me know. Plus, if you have any suggestions for additions to the functionality, drop me a line. If I like it & think I can pull it off (that's probably the big thing) I'll add it to the list.

Oh yeah, last but not least - if you come across any bugs, do let me know. Be sure to tell me how to reproduce it so I can figure out where it is taking place in the code. I'm still teaching myself SQL and PHP so there may be some problems that I haven't seen yet.

Selected Ice Conditions effective March 21, 2024
I can't actually say that there is nothing out there that can't be climbed. That would be foolish. But for the average, or a little above average climber, that's probably correct. That said, I did hear that there is climbable ice on Parasol in Dixville Notch. Not sure how that will be after we get a foot of heavy wet snow on Saturday. Regardless, here's a few pix I took today just to document things.
	Huntington Ravine	AVALANCHE
	Repentance	OUT
	Standard Route	OUT
	Dracula	OUT
For the full current conditions report, CLICK HERE

Remember - climb hard, ride the steep stuff, stay safe and above all BE NICE,