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!
Before you look at the pictures I took today, and read the Report that I wrote when I got home, please take a minute to consider the time and effort it took and how useful it is to you. It takes a major commitment on my part to do this each and every week. Always making sure that it's done on Thursday's so that you will have the information you need to make your plans for the coming weekend.
Think about what it would be like for you personally to not have this information available to you every week in one place with the pictures and commentary. There certainly are other sites and other Facebook pages that have a variety of info about the state of the ice, and about climbing in New Hampshire in general. If you feel it's of no value, then please do not read it, don't look at the pictures and find another way to make your decisions about climbing ice up in the White's this coming weekend.
Why am I bringing this up? Because with less that 100 donors out of 1200 subscribers, it is rapidly becoming unsustainable for me personally. Especially if there are apparently so few people interested enough to donate a paltry $20 a year to support my effort. But, if you feel that the White Mountain Report and the Ice Report in particular is valuable to you, please take a minute or two and make a donation of any amount. I would sincerely appreciate your support. Simply go ON LINE and make your donation via PayPal. You don't actually need a PayPal account, you can use almost any credit card. Just click the link below:
Of course you can also contribute via check or money order if you like. Make it out to NEClimbs and send it right here:
NEClimbs
92 Bow Lane
North Conway, NH 03860
The time and expense of the running and maintaining NEClimbs.com and putting out The White Mountain Report continue all year. But in the winter I put in at least 5 hours every Thursday taking the pictures, processing them, writing the Report, posting the pix on NEClimbs and FaceBook and putting out the email newsletter Report. It's a lot. PLEASE REMEMBER, it's your contribution that makes this newsletter and the NEClimbs web site viable.
You can see many of the Reports on NEClimbs.com web site, I've archived them from as far back as September of 1999! To get a sense of the popularity of the site, current site traffic as of October 26 2017 on NEClimbs.com is about 20,000 UNIQUE visits a day, generating roughly 900,000 monthly "HITS". The White Mountain Report newsletter also goes out to over 1,200 subscribers weekly! If you're one of those, please consider making a donation to the site.
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
Here are some pictures taken today. The normal ones are on Facebook and NEClimbs.
TODAY:
Brad and I went up to Frankenstein this morning. We got a late start due to the knowledge it was going to be a cold day. And of course, tho we didn't actually start climbing 'till almost noon, we were correct. I don't think it got above 15 in the shade, which is where we were climbing - Standard Route. The ice was fat enough that I felt confident enough to try my new ErgoNomics. As expected they are great, with the only issue around the fact that I was using the T mixed picks instead of Pur Ice. They simply don't stick as well in the hard brittle ice. I've experienced that before with other picks in the past. But I don't want to trash the other picks in the occasional thin ice on certain climbs. Oh well...trade offs!
I led the whole thing and there were places that it was surprisingly stout for Standard. I went up to the ledge in one push with a 70 meter rope, bypassing the cave. There is a section right up the middle, 10 or 20' above the cave, that feels more like something on Pegasus that Standard Route. HA! And the hard ice was VERY hard and brittle. Tho Standard is generally moderate, don't expect it to be the moderate that it so often is. Frankly I was happy to be roped up today.
When we walked off we went past the Hanging Garden. It's in quite interesting conditions right now. Clawcicle is IN and getting pretty pegged out. Besides that there are lots of lines that look as if they will be happening very soon. I would hope that folks will let them fully form and be led and not just toprope them to death. I'm being selfish now...
A CRABBY COMMENT:
The past couple of weeks I've been noticing that some folks are just peeing everywhere. That's right, I'm talking about yellow snow folks. Today there was a lot of pee by the tracks at Standard where everyone normally leaves their packs. Was it really that inconvenient to walk 8' over to the embankment to pee? REALLY? And then up by the very start to Standard there was pee where I normally sit by the boulder to put on my crampons, and worse even, on the ground to the left where the rope drags as you head up the route! Again, 10' climbs right you could pee down the hill.
I know I sound like a crotchety old man, and I guess I am. But please - have a little consideration. PLEASE?
ICE FEST 2019:
Mark your calendars & book your clinics folks! IT'S THE 26TH YEAR of the 2019 Mount Washington Valley Ice Fest: February 1st-3rd, 2019.
VALLEY CYCLING:
Since the bike trails aren't hardly packed at all, and lots of the snowmobile trails aren't groomed or even being used, options are limitated. That said, Bear Notch Road can provide 9+ miles (up and down) of good fun. I did it early in the week and honestly I've never seen it in better shape or as wide. Honestly it looks as if it's been groomed and packed. I'm pretty sure I could drive my Outback to the top in the current state. Highly recommended!
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:
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.
