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Brad and I had a plan to try to grab some rock on Wednesday before the season is fully shut down. We checked out the weather predictions and talked Tuesday night, agreeing to touch base on Wednesday morning with the hope of heading up to Mt Forist mid-day but unfortunately the weather did not cooperate.
Honestly, the way the weather has been, I'm not at all sure if I'm going to get in another day of rock this season. [sigh] I'm hoping for at least one blast of Indian Summer, but who knows. Several friends are already eyeing the temps on Mt Washington and thinking about the Dike. as always, you gotta wonder who will be first.
I drove up through Crawford Notch this afternoon to ride Mt Clinton and Jefferson Notch Roads and took a few pictures. Needless to say there is no ice, but I did notice that there is snow up high on Mt Willey. None that I could see on the Webster side tho!
A MUSICAL PS:
I played what is almost assuredly my last music gig for the season over at Lenny's in Westford with guitarist/singer Denny Breau. The brother of legendary guitarist Lenny Breau, Denny is an amazing player & singer in his own rite. If you haven't seen him play, make sure you put him on your list when the music scene starts up again, whenever that is. He is a true Maine treasure!
2020/2021 FUNDRAISER:
YUP - It's almost the first of November, so it's about time to start putting out the weekly White Mountain ICE Report. I've been writing the Report for 22 years, since 1998. Red Sox radio broadcaster Joe Castiglione says, "Can you believe it?" I guess I do...
I truly hope you find this weekly White Mountain Report and NEClimbs.com web site are enough to warrant making a small donation to support what I do. As always, absolutely any amount is welcome, so please take a minute to go ON LINE and make your donation.
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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 driving up into the Notch, taking the pictures, processing them, writing the Report, posting the pix on NEClimbs and FaceBook and putting out the email newsletter Report. It's an effort... PLEASE REMEMBER, it's your contribution that makes this newsletter and the NEClimbs web site viable.
BTW You can see almost all of the Reports on NEClimbs.com archived from as far back as September of 1999! To get a sense of the popularity of the site, current traffic as of October 29 2020 on NEClimbs.com is about 126,000 UNIQUE visits a day, generating almost 2 million monthly "HITS". The White Mountain Report newsletter goes out every week to over 1,200 subscribers weekly!
GUIDEBOOK REVIEW:
I finally got around to writing a review of Todd Swain's great new guidebook "An Ice Climber's Guide To Southern New Hampshire and Eastern New York". The book is available at all the regular places, including IME here in the Valley. You can read my review here:
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
SOME LOCAL/NATIONAL PANDEMIC THOUGHTS:
8,683,298 confirmed cases in the US, 225,073 American citizens are dead with 1,171,255 reported deaths world-wide from the Novel Corona Virus as of Thursday October 29th! Over the past 7 days New Hampshire has had 724 new cases of the virus (up ~200), 9 new deaths and our positivity rate is 1.69%, up from last week.
Tho not as bad as most states, we are in an upward trend, driven by community spread in bars and restaurants. In addition the governor has shut down hockey for 2 weeks due to significant numbers of cases traced to that activity. Interestingly enough the NH counties above and below Carroll - the one that includes the Valley - are trending upward at a higher rate than we are. That's obviously a good thing that we are lower, but it is likely just a matter of time before we are in the same situation. Fortunately I see a majority of folks wearing masks here, so that is a good thing. Let's just hope we remain in this pattern.
Like the doctors, I am most concerned about what is going to happen during the winter when more people are inside. I am not planning on traveling over the holidays. I don't feel that is safe for me and my family, so I'm imagining a better holiday season next year.
I find JHU's Daily COVID-19 Data in Motion report to be very informative. It shares critical data on COVID-19 from the last 24 hours in a short 1 minute animated video format.
WEAR A MASK, SANITIZE AND STAY PHYSICALLY DISTANT FRIENDS!
REMEMBER - WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER
VALLEY CYCLING:
I had a couple of nice rides this week. One was with my buddy Phil at Rob Brook, off the Kanc side of Bear Notch Road. What we do out there these days is mostly logging roads and snowmobile trails. There is some old single track, but it's mostly overgrown. We got in almost 13 miles and over 1,000' of climbing in a little under 2 hours. You can get up pretty near Owls and Green's cliffs.
I was in desperate need of some activity so today I drove through the Notch after I took pictures and rode Mt Clinton Road. I was planning on also doing Jefferson Notch, but just as I got to where the actual climbing started, it started to spit rain/snow so I turned around. I did get damp on the way back, but it still was a good 9.2 mile ride with 668' of climbing. Although the gate on Jefferson Notch is not closed, there is a sign posted. If we get the 4" or so that is predicted for Friday, it's likely it will be gated, as will be many of the other notch roads. It's just a matter of time folks.
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.
