Desperate But Not Serious
As I write this trip report of sorts, outside my window the sun bakes the lawn. The weatherman says it will hit 73F today. It is late January 2002. Some folks seem to be happy with these developments. I... am not. This time last year Brian and I were doing a mixture of ice flailing, ski flogging, winter grovelling, and... er... "route finding" (or losing, as the case might have been) in the White Mountains. The ice was fat, there was snow. It was bliss. At least that's the way I choose to recall it.
Not so this year. The entire country is warm. Too warm. Sure, there have been little waves, brief arctic blasts that have come through. Buffalo got hammered hard. But by and large this winter has simply not shown up. It's sad. And we'd had just about enough.
Despite grim predictions of hellaciously thin to nonexistent ice up north, Brian and I agreed to drive up to Conway and take a look around. What the heck? And besides, local descriptions of thin ice didn't faze us. What is "thin" to someone accustomed to having a minimum of three-foot-thick ice on all climbs, all season, wouldn't care to see the levels to which Mid-Atlantic climbers are routinely reduced during our "winter" down south. This is not to say Brian and I are good or confident enough to make it up hard, scrape-scream-kick-and-claw routes. We're not. Hell no. It's only to say that we were and continue to be just stupid and desperate enough to do the drive and take a look for ourselves, and hopefully be surprised, or at the very least appeased. The trip had the potential to be a) a complete washout, in which case we determined that we would never speak of it, to anyone, ever, or b) something of a success, if we managed to get up anything at all.
A few days before we left the following news item was brought to my attention:
Star Adam Ant detained in hospital
I found this a rather curious [and sad] development.
It's a long drive from D.C. to the Whites. Approximately 1,200 miles round trip, if you'd like to put a number on it. Brian and I did a couple of things to prepare for the hell that would soon be on wheels:
Brian and I packed up and hit the road at a brutal 4am. We knew we'd hit rush hour on I-95 at some point. We just hoped to be as far north as possible when it happened (it happened on the George Washington Bridge, as it would). I made it to New Jersey before I found a Starbucks that was open. That's just plain dangerous.
I need to adjust your expectations for this trip report. There will be none of the sullen, introspective, self-doubting, regret-filled tomfuggery you may have come to expect from previous dispatches. This ain't one of those. This is a bit different. There will most certainly be self-indulgence. There will be needless trivia lost upon many. There will be facts. There will be anecdotes. There will be some measure of happy suffering. There will be a good deal of exposition at the onset, be forewarned. For all of these, my friend, do not worry, do not adjust your sets, do not be alarmed, and please, don't hold it against me. It's rare that I have the energy for these things these days. Please, allow me.
This trip report is, essentially, about four things: And so it begins. |
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