Like reading the White Mountain Report every week? Why not get it delivered to your e-mailbox every Thursday? All you have
to do is subscribe. It's fast, painless, and best of all it doesn't cost you
a dime!
Funny how different crags exude a different character at different times. It really came to mind the other afternoon as I was coming home from town down River Road at about 3PM. Cathedral stood there heavy and dark, with almost a foreboding look. Whitehorse, on the other hand, was much lighter and brighter. Of course this all has to do with the quality of the light at that particular time. The next morning at 8AM Cathedral was bathed in a warm rosy glow that made it seem almost inviting.
It's been below freezing every day this past week. Now the weather pundits are predicting brutally cold temps for the next several days. While I like it to be cold, I till it cold and snowy. This isn't really much fun, at least for me. That said some of my friends are really finding this kind of weather perfect for mountain biking. with a minimum snow on the ground and rock-hard ice it's close to perfect IF you have studded tires. Now that's just what I need, another winter sport! Well at least I already have the mountain bike. Unfortunately the cost of studded tires rivals a pair of good ice climbing gloves.
I was really getting antsy this afternoon so I grabbed my stuff & headed over to Cathedral for a little reconnaissance. I haven't gotten up close to Goofer's this season & I was wondering what it looked like up close. Turns out it looks pretty good. There is ice top to bottom. Kind of thin up to the little roof/bulge about 1/2 way up, but really nice & fat from there on. The cool thing is that you can clip a couple of the bolts on Dawn Patrol as you go. SWEET! The rest of the cliff has ice here. It was a nice walk along the base. Checked out the start to Standard Route and it looked as if it would go. So I wonder what folks would say about dry-tooling Toe Crack? Hmmm... Diagonal is coming, but the pillar actually doesn't look climbable yet. Maybe soon. There was some interesting pillars just right of the Mordor that I could climb one, step across a ledge, and down climb the other. That was good for a few laps. There was someone on Thresher so grabbed a couple of other things at the North End just for giggles. Now why couldn't we have this earlier in the season? Oh well, we just have to take it when we can.
Ice Conditions Report:
Selected Ice Conditions effective February 19, 2026
Just as you would expect following Ice Fest AND a week of truly balmy temps, going to be upper 30's today, the ice can be a mixed bag. I saw someone post about how things are terrible. But digging into it, I realized they were talking about places like the North End that are very well used. It probably gets the most use of all. There are only a few places that have really easy access to moderate climbing and where you can set up a bunch of top-ropes. So that's not unexpected. And of course the climbs that are getting a lot of full sun are getting somewhat punked-out. On my way back from Wolfeboro mid-afternoon a few days ago I took a look at Rainbow Slabs which look as if they are getting pretty funky. And I watched a hunk of the bottom of Way In The Wilderness fall down! IMO it's really the time to start paying attention to what you're walking underneath, any time of the day. Enjoy this weather, but keep paying attention...
Huntington Ravine
numerous options
Repentance
iffy
Standard Route
GREAT conditions
Dracula
IN & very fat
For the full current conditions report, CLICK
HERE
Slideshow In Boston:
The American Alpine Club and the Appalachian Mountain Club present Mountaineering Historian Andy Selters - "Ways to the Sky"
Author, climber and photographer Andy Selters will present a multi-
media digital show on the history of climbing in North America. His 2004
book- "Ways to the Sky"- won top honors from the Banff Mountain Book
Festival and the National Outdoor Book Award. Selters' presentation
portrays the progression of mountaineering and its basis in our culture
using images of historical climbs from every decade and from peaks from
all over the continent.
Andy has been a climbing guide, author, and photographer for over
20 years. He has pioneered new routes in the Karakoram, the Himalaya,
and the Andes.
PS - I've read the book & this guy is an excellent writer. It's well worth checking him out.
Thursday, February 15th, 7:00pm
AMC Cabot Hall
3 Joy St., Boston, MA
Admission: $7.00 at the door
Book sale and signings
Local contact: WAtkinson@Compuserve.com
Mobile Version Of NEClimbs:
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:
Check it out and if you have issues on your specific phone, please feel free to let me know.
NEClimbs & White Mountain Report On Facebook:
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:
Remember - climb hard, ride the steep stuff, stay safe and above all BE NICE,
Al Hospers
The White Mountain Report
North Conway, New Hampshire
Boulder /n./ place close to the ground to practice falling. When climbers aren't climbing, they like to sharpen their skills by bouldering on large rocks located in places frequented by impressionable tourists. Because bouldering is done without protection, the rule is never to climb higher than you'd like to fall. That is why so many climbers stand around discussing boulder problems instead of climbing them.
Climbing is a very dangerous sport. You can get hurt or even kill yourself. When you go climbing, you do so of your own free will. Everything on this site is to be taken with a grain of salt. Don't blame us if you get up some totally heinous route, in over your head and fall and hurt yourself.
