Talking points:

• There is a road.
• It is named 108.
• You will want to be on it.
• You will want to have skis or snowshoes for the up-getting and the down-going.
• We did not on the latter, in either case. Both of which. Not. At all. Even.
• This was somewhat dumb.
• There is ice!
• Behold!
• It is nowhere near you.
• It is above in great and terrible quantity.
• Far above.
• You.
• Down there.
• Squinting peon.
• Surrounded by great, fluffy pillows of whiteness.
• This is not a fabric softener advert.
• This is snowfall in ludicrous volume.
• So yes, there is a road.
• You should not expect the ice to be anywhere near it.
• You should expect, on average, to plow through anywhere from 200-1000+' vertical of bottomless powder, eyebrow deep, to get to the climbs.
• This takes some amount of effort.
• Be advised.
• We found this all a bit confusing.
• But then. We are. Us.

Day of the First Dawning of the Age of Aquarius

We walked along the road, looking, looking. We saw a number of very interesting flows to our right (heading in south to north, from the Stowe side of the Notch; there are climbs all along 108, a 2.1-mile-long road that is closed and unplowed in winter, and, depending on what routes you desire, you may approach from Stowe on the south, or Jeffersonville to the north). The flows to our right looked very difficult to reach, through... I have to tell you it looked an awful lot like a briar patch. We continued walking along the road (for almost exactly one mile).

And then we stopped with the walking and decided to go up, on account of we probably could have simply walked all day long, otherwise. As it turns out, this was a pretty good idea. We ended up somewhere in the vicinity of the South Wall/Upper South Wall/Little Bastard areas, should anyone be interested in the where. The how involved two snorkels, a caulking gun, a very nice set of 300-count sheets, some dynamite, a botched attempt at a pole vault (landing area not up to code), and a midnight rendezvous with the local Teamsters union at an undisclosed location.