That's It, I'm Calling My Gang
|
Okay, we're on Day Two. There was a Day "Half," where Brian travelled in, we drove to Conway, changed and made an honest attempt to do something, but, as expected, it amounted to very, very little. Not even worth mentioning. Sorry to have taken up the time, as such.
And so: Day Two. But first, let me qualify. New England has had its share of winter this... winter. Lots of snow. Curiously interspersed with beach-going weather. The wild temperature swings have played havoc with the snowpack and ice. The week Brian and I were in the Whites, it was lean. (I detect a theme here: "Brian and Mike are coming? Roll up the ice, maybe they'll just pass on through... Nope. That didn't work. Let's rain on them, then. Rain or ass-bite cold... Which is it? How about both? But not at the same time - that might create ice.") We saw hardly any climbers, other than guided ones, on anything. Let me put our position in concise perspective.
Lacking: We found our options limited. We had also previously, over the last several years, climbed just about every easy (or really easy) route in the Mt. Washington Valley. There just wasn't a lot to get done that wasn't wicked hard, in the process of falling apart, nonexistent, or a combination of any or all. We decided to hit an area we hadn't been to (guaranteeing failure before even starting), in Texaco Slabs. Easy to find as they are, located behind the Texaco Station that was demolished years ago and is thus not so much a landmark as a memory, down the river a ways, we have been told, just around the corner from - and I kid you not - Missing Wall. If you can't find your way there from these simple instructions, you're just a moron. So yeah, we're morons. But, in this case, morons who made haste. We followed Davis Path. This is because of a key little bit of instruction taken, apparently, out of context (woops!) in the guidebook: "Routes will be described as they would be encountered on the approach from the Davis Path." What you want to do, though, see, is not do that at all. What you want to do, apparently, is cross the bridge over the Saco, prentending like you're going to take Davis Path, but see, this is just to trick out anyone who might be following you, perhance the hounds mayhap?, because what you really want to do, is cross the bridge, then hang an immediate left and "follow the river upstream to reach the crags." I don't want to get in to it. Once we realized the error, which was after not too long, we turned tail. In total, we only wasted an hour getting up and then, so quickly, back down. This is a huge improvement for us, I will say, over the [hopefuly sunset period] when we'd just plod along cluelessly for days, weeks even. Well done, Mr. Connors. Well done say I. We got back to the car and decided to go to Frankenstein Cliff, somewhere I had never climbed, home of hard routes (which is why I'd never climbed there). We hoped to find the easiest. After seeing a few parties on the steeps (and not-terribly-steep but still scary), we did find something to play around on with the remains of the dwindling day (I had ignored the alarm; Brian did not protest). We think this - above, sorry, I have gone on - is probably Beginner's Slab North (NEI 1-2, sadly). We dinked around a bit on some steep bulges to the right of slab as a guide to our left coached a client on toprope. And then, without saying anything to one another, we pulled out the rope and Brian led up the thing. It was his first ice lead in a couple of years and of course he did a good job of it. One more little step and then a walkoff. It was a good save and a reasonably fun day, all in all. On the way out we looked at all the routes that we didn't quite have the headgame to try. We both remarked at how doable ice climbs look when you have no intention whatsoever of climbing them. |
|
|
|