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December 1, 2005
Hi Folks,
Well after 1.7 inches of rain on Wednesday there is no snow left in my yard
here in the Valley. Temps were up as high as 54 and hung around the mid-40's
until after midnight and as you can well imagine, the Saco is running very
high from all the melt off in the upper elevations. Then of course the weather
turns absolutely beautiful this morning. By beautiful I mean bluebird skies,
but unfortunately not cold.
Funny how we adjust what we think of as "great weather" depending
on the season and our location. Up here Spring through Fall we all love those
dry clear days, but once winter comes it's "the more snow the better" and
those sunny days aren't required! For me I could pretty much care less if it's
clear or not, as long as there is ice on the cliffs and snow in the mountains
it's a "great day".
This got brought home to me last week when I was talking with someone in Philadelphia
about business related things. Running through the normal exchange of pleasantries
of course the weather came up. They were having a generally nice day by almost
any standard. When I put in my 2 centavos, I too said it was great. He had
just looked at the East coast weather report and thought I was nuts. We had
snow on the ground, temps were in the mid-20's and here I was chomping at the
bit to get our conversation over with so I could go out & play. He just
laughed at me. It made me remember talking to friends in upper New York State
when I was living in Miami. I was at the beach on Xmas day and they were on
the slopes. We both were happy folks. It's all in your personal perspective.
Personally I'm happy with mine right now.
Woops, it's 46 & still sunny, gotta go - the road bike calls. <grin>
If you haven't caught this show on the Science Channel, check it out sometime.
In each episode Les Stroud is abandoned in a remote location and he has to
survive for a week. He has his trusty multi-tool, no food or water, barely
more than the clothes he is wearing and 50 pounds of cameras that he has
to use to film the ordeal himself. While not perfect, it is entertaining
and informative and pretty much every week I get something out of his experiences.
Last week's episode he had a magnesium flint-stick. It was a very nifty item & one
I think I'm going to pick up for my pack. Here's the web
site.
I really enjoy this show, and so does my 6 year old. And YES, he does carry
an emergency satellite phone, but as Les says; "I have discovered as I
do random testing that it has only been operational 50% of the time!" And,
oh yeah, he's not a bad harmonica player either!
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 some 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/
Have fun and climb safe,
Al Hospers
The White Mountain Report
North Conway, New Hampshire
| Winter alpinism is hard enough without the added dilemma of free-climbing ethics. |
| Barry Blanchard |
|
