Brian and I wanted to make up for a few of the ones that got away (about half) from our last New England ice trip.

Due to equally packed schedules and various responsibilities, the only dates that mutually worked for us were on the last weekend of February. We didn't know it when we were planning the trip, but our plans would coincide with the big New England Ice Festival. It was no problem, however, since we'd decided to come back and try one of the bigger alpine routes on Mt. Webster's west face. The vast majority of climbers visiting the Whites, specifically Crawford Notch, find themselves on the routes on Frankenstein, or on one of the entertaining and enjoyable shorter alpine routes on Mt. Willard. The gullies on Webster generally have deep snow approaches and some degree of snow climbing, usually leading to ice or mixed ground higher on the routes. Many folk just don't enjoy the slog to get to the good stuff.

Brian and I? Well heck yeah, we slog. Sure.

We flew in to Manchester on Saturday and drove straight up to Crawford Notch after getting a bit of breakfast on the way up I-93 (on the way we quaked in fear at the sight of the Black Dike [grade 5-, whatever - I have no idea where the minus comes from and don't have any desire to find out at the moment; maybe it's wicked hard but the pro is extremely good?] on Cannon). We checked in on the AMC Hostel at the Notch, our short-notice quarters for the night, but it was, as advertised, closed between 10am and 4pm. Brian and I wanted to get in a short day climb that afternoon if possible. We needed a reasonably sheltered, preferably warm, place to change into our climbing gear. It was around 11am and even with the sun out, temps were in the low teens. We ducked into the unheated and downright frosty anteroom at the Hostel's main building and did what had to be done. Good thing no one walked in. Wouldn't have been pretty. A certain Seinfeld episode involving cold water comes to mind...

Anyway, we got it together and headed off up the tracks to the Notch. We were looking to climb Streamline, a moderate multi-pitch route located somewhere between Willey's Slide and Mt. Willard, according to the guidebook. We made the walk all the way up the tracks, but never found a decent approach to the route. Heavy snow made everything rough going. We finally saw what we imagine was the route, but the thrash to get up to it was more than we wanted to deal with in the limited time and with energy we had. I'm not sure how many folks do Streamline. It looked fun. At any rate, we decided to simply head back to Hitchcock Gully and do the long, steep approach up to the first pitch, just to check it out and get our feet under us again.