Tag Archives: North Conway

Oct30

Climbing at Cathedral, NUComers 2013

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Saturday, 12-Oct-2013

So on Saturday, Daniel and I left the Loj late.

This isn’t that strange for us, and it was a quite nice way to start the day… a day that wasn’t looking particularly pleasant, if we’re being honest.  See, the whole weekend was blanketed in clouds and a low hanging fog that just coated everything in a thin mist of water.  Not a bad thing for hiking, but for climbing?  Yeah.  Not so ideal.

But we headed to the cars regardless, jumped in the Mustang, and headed toward North Conway to meet up with Cathedral, a cliff face that I’ve grown to know and love.

Our target was a climb called Funhouse, which would be two pitches to what’s called the “Refuse Ledge”, which would then lead to two pitches of climbing called Upper Refuse, after which we’d summit out on a short 45ft climb.  Sounds fun, and we stuck with it nearly exactly… with a few minor exceptions.

  • Pitch 1 = Funhouse – 5.7, 150ft – Daniel took the first lead, and it was quite fun.  I had more trouble than I’d like to admit though… Today was definitely a “high gravity day”, meaning that every move felt harder than it should.  My lack of sleep may have been it, but I’m kind of convinced that it was the thin mist cloying around the cliff.
  • Pitch 2 = Pooh – 5.8, 170ft – I took the lead here, and I regretted it.  We were going to do pitch 2 of Funhouse, but this was simpler to get to, and the line was quite obvious.  And it was very fun, but much harder than I thought it would be.  I went up assuming that my guidebook was right with a 5.7… but I learned recently that it’s since been re-graded as a 5.8.  Oops.  Still.  I finished, and enjoyed myself once I got into the flow of it.
  • Pitch 3 = Upper Refuse – 5.3, 100ft??? – Daniel took the lead on this strange setup… it’s a three pitch route, but Daniel and I only did it in two.  Because three pitches to do 200’ would be silly.  So ratings… not so sure about it.  Either way – seconding was quite fun, and this was a very enjoyable hand-crack system going nearly straight upward.  Well… except for the terrifyingly exposed face / slab move.  Which was done in the mist.  So friction wouldn’t work.  Yeah.  I’m glad Daniel led.
  • Pitch 4 = Upper Refuse – 5.5, 100ft??? – I took the final leg here, and again slightly regretted it.  This time there were a few different options on routes to take, and I ended up floundering between the two for nearly 20min before I finally just sacked up and made the moves.  From there it was nice and easy… until the last slab move of course.  Notice a pattern here?
  • Summit pitch = ??? – 5.2, 45ft – Daniel led this last mini-pitch, and it was a fun and simple way to get to the observation area of Cathedral.

Once we were at the summit we chatted with a few tourists (who of course thought we were the bee’s knees and/or insane), and relaxed with the semi-interesting view of the clouds coming down past the presidential range.  It was nice, and relaxing, and a good reward for the climbing we’d just busted out.

From here we walked down to the access road and started the weary trudge back to where we’d left our gear at the base of the cliff.  On the walk we ran into two cars though – one minivan where the father asked us to explain our gear to his sons, and one tiny accord who offered us a ride back down to our car.  We took them both up on their offers, and the walk down was made nearly as enjoyable as the climb up.

 

Ohh!  And Daniel found a small pink shovel.  That is important to note.

Aug9

Return to Whitehorse Ledges, July of 2013 marks the full ascent!

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Return to Whitehorse Ledges

Weekend of July 26th – 28th

Friday, 26-Jul-13

  • Leave work early, so I can bike over to the RMV to get a renewed license
  • Renewal actually goes really cleanly… no trouble, nice person behind the counter.  I even get a massage in a cool massage chair while waiting.  Cost a whole buck.
  • Bike to Davis and grab a few steaks for the weekend – incentive to finish the route on time!
  • Bike home, pack the last few things, eat a bit and pack up the car
  • Drive onto the open road!  … Huh.  Not so open.  Traffic!
  • Finally break free, and after stopping for the rest of the food I finish the drive up to the Loj in peace and serenity… turns out the thing I was missing recently?  Driving fast down an open road with the roof down.  Really helps the whole “happiness” thing, heh.
  • Arrive at the Loj to a completely empty parking lot.  Drive the Mustang up to the LC lot, pull my gear, and start the walk up.  It’s nice… nostalgic and relaxing
  • Open the Loj up after seeing a terrifyingly low propane tank, but not a full open.  Windows?  Meh.  Stove, cocoa, and a fridge are all we need
  • Pack everything away and lay out for some more reading of American Gods ‘till Daniel arrives.  Once he does… we basically continue chilling and reading; crash early for an early morning.

Saturday, 27-Jul-13

  • Wake up early… like, normal working day early.  Maybe even earlier.  … I woke up at 7:00.  Daniel was cranky about it, but making breakfast convinced him to get his ass off the couch.
  • Scrambling eggs, eating apples and snacks, and making of lunches occurs.
  • After reviewing the route again, we roll out toward the cliffs!  Pack up the Mustang and hit the highway.  It’s a quick drive, but amazingly fun going through the mountains with the music blaring.
  • Arrive, park, pull gear, and walk over to the base of the cliff.  Racking up takes a few minutes, but it’s a good thing – there’s a team ahead of us, and we give them enough time to move ahead of us enough that we’ve got a good three pitches free ahead.
  • Move out!  CLIMBING!
    • (Official Pitch 1) walk up: we just walk up the slab to the Launch Ledge.  It’s a simple easy thing… I think it’s officially rated a 5.0, but since it’s such a shallow slab…
    • Pitch 1: I take the lead up to the toilet bowl.  It’s wet and gross, but a simple climb and an easy belay.  Daniel gets cranky about me getting his rope wet.
    • Pitch 2: Daniel leads the route over to the bottom of the Arch.  It’s clean and simple.
    • Pitch 3: The Arch.  My favorite pitch… super long, good pro, and fun moves.  I think it’s ~170 ft of climbing, but a low angle and with a big crack to the side.  FUN!
    • Pitch 4: I take the lead again, leaving the pinch belay and moving up to the Lunch Ledge.  I take a slightly non-standard route, but it’s fine and fun.
    • Pitch 5: The crux.  The evil pitch.  This is the one that’s stopped me in my tracks before… either by just being too hard, taking far too much time due to route finding trouble, or just generally being evil.  We had a choice: easy way that takes longer, or quicker hard way.  I decided to cut to the chase, and take the hard way.  It was terrifying; tons of thin moves on tiny holds, a good 700ft off the ground.  But I did it.  And soon enough we were moving onward again…
    • Pitch 6: Daniel led this one.  Sort of.  Instead of taking the well-worn simple way, he took the straight-forward way… which was quite harder.  Not due to the rock… but due to the massive amount of lichen encrusting the rock.  But Daniel beasted it out, and we continued climbing…
    • Pitch 7 & 8: We strung these two into one pitch, thanks to Daniels 70m rope.  Fun and simple – very run out though.  Like… this was a full 70m pitch (215 ft), and I had… two?  Maybe three placements?  Yeah.  Easy climbing, terrifying head games.
    • Once we finished up the route, we hung out with some of the folks we had met on the route – taking in the view and the beginnings of the sunset before starting the walk down the trail.
    • Guh… climbing is fun, but hella-tiring.  Walking off is almost worse.
    • The drive back to the Loj is epic – perfect sunset, just the right temperature to have the top down, and we get back to the parking lot just in time for dusk to finish falling.
    • Meet a few NUHOCers at the Loj who’re copying Mike and my “ninja camping at the Loj” weekend… but they’re not particularly good at it, because we meet up with them as they’re stealing firewood.  It’s all good though, and we hang out for a bit.
  • DINNER!
    • Porterhouse T-Bones, cooked cleanly with just salt and olive oil, with side dishes of garden-fresh (from my garden) tomatoes and some seared summer squash
    • Holy crap, so good.
    • And to top it off?  Mason jars full of Champagne.  Because that’s how we roll.  Also?  MaCallan 12 year Scotch.  Hell to the yes.
    • Relax for the night, and crash semi-early.

Sunday, 28-Jul-13

  • Wake up… meh.  Nah.  I’ll get up when I feel like it.  Have a few good dreams before finally getting mobile and making up some breakfast
  • Relax out on the back porch and read, nearly finishing up American Gods.
  • We debate going out to Rumney… but it’s one of those “I just… I wanna relax!” sort of days.  So we do.  Instead of rushing out we take our time closing up the Loj and packing everything… finally leaving around one or two.
  • Drive down 113, taking in the scenery and scouting out a few places to do some climbing later on in the season
  • We take the Kancamagus highway back toward I-93, grabbing a bite of dinner/lunch before taking the main highway all the way back through to Boston.
Jun30

Weekend of 23Jun – Climbing at Cathedral and Rumney

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Saturday, 23Jun12 and Sunday, 24Jun12

 

Saturday: Cathedral

Alex and I parked at the base of the cliff, and headed straight up towards the rock. Our goal was Black Lung, finishing up on the two pitches of Upper Refuse. A super-classic line reaching from the bottom of the cliff all the way to the top. Unfortunately, we hadn’t parked anywhere near the base of that climb, and instead found ourselves in the position of needing to hike all the way back to the car in order to find Black Lung.

Nope. Instead, we found a few climbs in the area, and headed up those:

 

Still in Saigon (5.8+)

This route was scary. Seriously. This route was so run out I thought we were on whitehorse, and the moves were insanely thin – small, friction moves without any sort of protection nearby. It was good though, honestly was more of a sport route than Trad – out of the 7 or so placements Alex made, only two of them were actual gear. The rest? Bolts. Boo.

I don’t know how Alex led it, to be completely honest. Maybe back when I was leading insane routes every week I could have, but as of now… dang.

In the scheme of routes, I wouldn’t recommend it as a “definitely do it!” climb… but if you’re in the area and want a challenge, definitely try it out.

Note: it was hot. Hot as in “My hand hurt from the heat of the rocks. I think I got burnt”.

Kiddy Crack (5.7)

This route is classic. It’s so good that it’s scary… every move is fun and interesting, but at no point do you get bored by the simplicity of it. This is definitely my favorite climb at Cathedral, hands-down.

I led this one, since it’s definitely my style – cracks and edges. There was one rough move right off the deck, but it was followed by super-clean crack climbing which closes out to some small face moves near the top.

It’s slightly challenging at it’s level, but so good. 100% recommended.

 

Child’s Play (5.6)

Child’s Play is another “super-classic” route, right near Kiddy Crack, rated at being one of the best routes in New England. In my opinion it’s not as good as KC, but still very clean and fun moves covered by very solid protection.

Alex led this one, and had a pretty good time of it from what I could tell. For me, seconding was a bit scary – not from any danger on the climb, but from the worry of rain. The sky opened up on us literally minutes after we finished rappelling off the top.

 

Sunday: Rumney

Unfortunately I don’t remember any of the route names from Sunday, since I wasn’t the one looking them up in the book. But the basic plan was that five of us (Alex, myself, Sean, Adam, and Liz) would climb a bit on the Main Cliff (since it would definitely be dry from the rain), and then we’d either continue climbing there, or head up to something a bit tougher as the day wore on.

 

Main Cliff:

 

5.7

This one I’d done before a few years back – it sits on the bottom tier of the main cliff, and leads up to some of the bigger and burlier climbs at Rumney. It’s got a quick tricky start, but once you master the movements the rest of the climb is classic Rumney – clean and fun face climbing. I think it was something like four bolts long though, so it doesn’t last long enough to really loose yourself in it.

I lead it and set it as a toprope for the others – simple and easy lead, definitely a good one if you want to try out the grade.

 

5.8

Unlike the climb above, this one you can get lost in it. Alex took the lead, and it was long. As in “we used almost half of the rope” long. And in climbing, that’s the farthest that you can go on a single rope… assuming you want to get the rope back afterward.

It was fun, but a bit boring to be honest. Most of the climbing was simple rock-scrambling, although near the end it did turn into a rather interesting and steep route. I’d recommend it if you want a long route with an amazing view at the top. Otherwise, don’t bother.

This was supposed to be a two-pitch route, but when we looked over to see the next pitch… it was nowhere to be found. I’m guessing that it’s very rarely climbed, and that lichen has overgrown most of the route in the meantime – we chose to rappel off instead of continuing, since missing the route up meant accidentally getting onto anything from a .10d to an .11a. Not safe.

 

G-Spot Wall:

 

5.10b

Oh man, this route. This route. Oh man.

This route was excellent – hard, challenging, but workable with very interesting and technical moves throughout. Alex again took the lead, busting it out after a few short falls / rests at the bolts; a very burly lead none-the-less though. I took the second cleanly (much to Alex’s chagrin), but cleanly due to the fact that I didn’t have to lead it.

100% recommended if you get a chance, and have strong faith in your outdoor leading skills.

 

5.7

This was a simple route that Adam and Liz had set up, since Sean had headed home after we left the Main Cliff.

This route was full of interesting moves, strange bolt locations, and generally sketchy bolting stances. Honestly, I didn’t enjoy anything about the route – the moves weren’t very fun, the route itself was scattered and unclear, and the bolts were never where they should have been – a foot above of below where they were would have been fine, but whoever bolted it was definitely not thinking about a climber of my height.

Not horrid, but unless you’re really searching for routes… pass this one over.