Upon arriving we found that there were numerous campsites availible however after closer inspection they were all very cramped! Either you had to sleep in a tent a short walk away from the car (Loop D) or you had to stay in your vehicle in 10X5 spot (Loop C). Not too desireable for a week’s long car camp. We threw a cooler in decent spot, hopped in the bed in the back of the van and slept and hour and a half before being awakend by a ranger checking cars in the lot. We slept a bit more and then went to the ranger station for opening.The ranger told us there was one spot left in Loop B, B6 to be exact, which was a car camping type spot and that was enough for us to decide to go for that. We were pleasantly suprised with how nice and convienet it was. Plenty of space, easy access to the car and not surrounded by neighbors. There was even a great and secluded spot to setup a hammock.

Highlights of the trip were hanging out with Christine and Hannah, playing with Gracie (their dog), hiking the precipise trail which pretty much goes up the side of cliff, climbing right along the ocean at otter cliffs with Dan McGrath, Nelly and Quenton and biking on the extensive carridge roads.

If I were to do it again I think I would get a campground on the eastern side of the island closer to most of the attractions like the blackwoods campground as we typically had to drive/bus at least 30 minutes to get anywhere of real interest. Also we rented bikes instead of bringing them and that acutally worked really well. $15 bucks was worth not having the hassle… well I don’t even have a bike so it had to be.

After sleeping in a Hotel in Gorham, NH John, Hillary, Aaron (whose idea this was), an I arrived at the Dolly Copp campgound a little before 3:00 AM and departed on the hour. We took the Daniel Webster Scout Trail (graciously cleared by Boy Scouts some seventy years ago) up to the peak of Madison.  Concerned that our headlamp batteries might run out on the second half of the trip only 2 of us at a time turned on our lamps, which made for some tricky stepping. At about 5:00 AM we were above the tree-line and missed a turn in the trail. The result was some interesting hiking amongst some pretty fragile plant life that I’m sure sent a dark shadow to the hearts of the White Mountains Rangers. We hit the summit of Madison just before 6:00AM, stopped for a quick photo and pressed on.

We stopped at the AMC Madison Spring Hut to get out of the wind and get some more food into our systems.  When we got inside we saw some of the thru-hikers starting to stir while others slept on tables in the dining area. We only stopped for about 10 minutes, but by the time we left the place was alive with hikers getting ready for their days. Plenty of them seemed confused as to how we got there and why they hadn’t seen us at dinner the night before. I think we gained some respect with the thru-hikers when we told them of our 2:00 AM wakeup and the plans for our ambitious trip. Topped off with food, and drained of other things we headed out of the Hut towards Adams.

 I remember the climb to the peak of Adams being windy and slippery and I think we all took a couple diggers. I generally lagged behind because of both my fitness level and the fact that I didn’t want to end up on my rear too often. The summit at Adams was windy as hell and I could barely stand up to snag a quick photo of myself (no one else wanted to stop up there) before descending into some more sheltered territory.

From there the trek over to Jefferson was pretty uneventful. It was mostly a ridgeline traverse without any big elevation gains or drops. The footing was markedly better as the sun was beginning to dry the rocks and the dreaded wet lichen was becoming less of a problem. We stopped briefly at about 8:00 AM for some more food and a good sit before hitting the Jefferson peak at about 8:45 AM.

At the Jefferson summit we took a moment to look out at Clay and Washington ahead of us, and I remember saying something like “That little nub over there is Clay, does that even count?”. What I didn’t realize is that we were going to descend 700 feet before getting to the 600 foot Clay ascent, and all of that in under a mile. I think the Clay ascent is where I started my 30 seconds of climbing / 5 seconds of resting technique, which is what I ended up doing on most of the rest of the ascents. Even with my slowing pace, we reached the top at about 10:00 AM.

There isn’t much of a descent between Clay and Washington (Amen!) and we quickly made it to the junction with the Cog Railway. This is where we made navigational error #2. Instead of following the Cog up the Northwest face of Washington, we traversed around to the Southwest face, until we were almost inline with the Lakes of the Clouds Hut. Aaron and Hillary we leading at this point and John and I made it very well know that we did not appreciate this extra mileage. Finally at around 11:00 AM, 9 hours into our trip, we made it to the top of Mt. Washington, our tallest peak of the day at 6288′. Let me just take a second here to say seeing cars at the top of Washington is a little disheartening. I mean, at the Katahdin’s summit you can look around and say to yourself, “This was a tough climb, but only after this tough climb can I reap the rewards of this beautiful view.” At the top of Washington I was starting to wonder if I souldn’t've just driven the damn thing.

 

 

We took a leisurly lunch which included some cheese, processed meats, and chili and some deliberation by John about taking the Cog down and calling it a day, and headed out around 11:45. John and Hillary left first and Aaron and I left 5-10 minutes later and we would rendezvous the Lakes of the Clouds Hut. From there it was a pretty easy hike over to Monroe and Franklin beyond that. We hit Franklin at about 1:15 PM and were on pace for a pretty good time.

There was a bit of a descent off of Franklin and up onto Eisenhower and my legs were feeling pretty juiced at this point moving past the 30 second/5 second ratio and into the 20 second / 10 second style. Off of Eisenhower it was a pretty straight descent, with a little climb before the peak of Pierce where we sat for a bit and grabbed some more food. Here, John decided to bail choosing to skip Jackson and Webster and hike the 3 miles to Rt 302 along the Crowford Path and then another 3 mile walk along 302 to the car. The rest of us pressed on the remaining 7.1 miles to the cars.

Tired, but still in good spirits, we hit the Mizpah Hut around 3:45. After stopping for the bathroom and NOT refilling out water (big mistake) we headed off towards Jackson. Or so we thought. Turns out that we headed downhill about .4 miles out of the way down the Mt. Clinton Trail. When we finally figured this out, I got pissed and haulled my way up to the Mizpah hut as fast as I could. Now when we reach the Mizpah hut again I’m still angry/frustrated and we’re getting more concerned about how much daylight we have left so we head off on the correct (Webster Cliff) trail still without refilling our water (HUGE mistake).

We come to the top of a small hill which I had delusionally decided was Mt. Jackson, only to be informed by Aaron that Mt. Jackson was actually that imposing peak 3/4 of a mile away. This is think is when my good natured view of this trip decided to leave. I was beat down, and my legs were deteriorating pretty rapidly. Even the flats were painful. We made it to the Jackson peak around 5:00 PM and I sat down for what seemed to be about 10 seconds before we took off again (I’m sure that it was more like 5 minute, but I was exhausted). I knew that Webster was the Baby of the traverse at a mere 3910′ so I wasn’t completely broken yet.

We cruised through Webster’s peak at around 6:00 PM after much moaning and groaning from myself. The last leg of the trip seemed to take for ever. Each mile marker was torturous: 4.2 miles to 302, then we hiked for what seemed like a day and saw the 3.1 miles to 302 sign. WHAT!?! We’ve only gone 1 mile? How is that possible? These signs can’t be right! This is where I completely checked out mentally. I was whining and sniveling like a little girl and Aaron and Hillary took turns babysitting me while the other went ahead to check the trail. We worked along a ridgeline and around a spur above 302 before finally heading down. The descent seemed to never end. We were way back below the treeline and so we couldn’t get any grip on where we were and where we were going. I sat down for a bit in the middle of the trail after both Hillary and Aaron were nice enough to give me the rest of their water, as I had been out for awhile. Then Hillary went ahead and Aaron stayed with me for a bit, mentioning that we really had to get going if we wanted to finish before dark.

We caught up with Hillary again around 8:00 PM when the light was fading pretty fast and we only had the dusk through the trees to guide us. We all decided that we really had to keep up a good pace to avoid getting stuck in the dark. Then Hillary took of at a near jog down the trail. And somehow, I followed her. She could hear my footsteps behind her and picked up the pace a bit, and I kept up. I was watching her footsteps to guide me which made the dusky light not as bad. As we came to a tree in the road she went left and I right and I passed her. I was almost in full running stride now and although my legs hurt some, I felt like I could run like that for hours.

I skidded to a stop at a sign post and was greeted with the most demoralizing sight of the trip: Rt 302 -> 2 Miles. I almost collapsed. When Aaron and Hillary caought up they couldn’t believe the sign either. We just stood there and stared for what seem like a while. Then Aaron noticed the small “.” before the 2 that we had missed in the bad light. .2 Miles!!!!! We all took off at a run again, Hillary in the lead. At about 8:30 PM we emergerd from the woods and onto the street. We crossed and made it to the car, dropping out packs overjoyed that we were done. Finally finishing 17.5 hours after we set out.

As the slopes here are quite steep, I quickly found that skins have there limitations. Firstly, while snow conditions play a large role in the purchase of the skins, there is definitly an inlcline limitation which is to be expected and turned out to be about 30 degrees to my untrained eye. Second, when you end up slipping, it is absolutly vital that your skins are properly trimmed such that your edges are exposed and ready to take grip. Mine weren’t perfect and I fell a bit but now I know better and you do too.

So upon reaching the the gun tower at the peak of the wildcat lift (technically its Mount Baldy’s shoulder) I took some night time photographs with a 3 inch tall tripod and very long shutter speeds. Click the photo below for some of the shots I took.

At first I thought it would get tiring or even boring to ski everyday but it’s simply not true. If anything skiing is one of the most addictive drugs there is. The more you ski the better you get. The better you get the more you want to ski. The body craves the adrenaline and builds a tolerance that can only be satisfied by ever increasingly challenging runs and deeper snow. Everyone who comes to the mountain whether they are an employee or a visitor is here for the same reason: to get high on powder snow.

For the past month now I’ve been working at the Goldminer’s Daughter Lodge as a cafe cashier or barista. This means I either place breakfast and lunch orders for people and take their money, or I make chai lattees, espressos and serve beer. I have my bar tending license and my food handlers permit so I can serve alcohol and prepare food… its kind of a scary thought. When I’m not steaming milk in the glassed in cafe which is a stone’s throw from the main base lifts, I’m working on becoming a better skier.

I haven’t met one person who was a ski bum and regretted it. I’m having a great time and I hope to ski with you.

In promoting there new film they’ve also released a preview and a trailer which are quite hot.

This video is worth it just for their song. Its sounds like the crap Dave and I would make up. Their skiing actually sucks but they have one dude who is quite nasty in the air.

The idea here is that typically when you are climbing with a top rope setup, you climb the rock while tied into a rope that goes through an anchor at the top of the pitch. On the other end of the rope there is a person called a belayer who takes in rope as you climb so if you are to fall you would be gently caught by the rope instead of the ground.

Well to solo you need to belay yourself by feeding your own rope. This is of course problematic because you normally need two hands to belay and well, that doesn’t leave you with many hands to climb. After looking online at how others approached the problem I realized that much like a releasable tele binding, there is many ways to tackle this problem, and there is no clear best method. Actually that’s not true. The best method and I quote “is not to solo at all.”

(I just killed a fly with my bare hand)

As others have been so kind to post there thoughts on the topic I thought I would put in my two cents and describe my rig. For those of you who just typed “top rope solo” in Google and found this entry, please don’t rope solo unless you feel comfortable doing it and this is by no means the “right” way to TR solo because everyone will have their own method that works best for them. Furthermore I am going to assume you know the basics of rope soloing and just provide a review of gear used and helpful tips.

First and foremost you NEED a multi-directional ground anchor. I didn’t use one at first, and the rope drag was insane! I originally tied into the end as if I was doing a regular TR climb and while it worked and was relatively safe, I was more prone to falling since it required extreme effort to get the rope through my belay device.

Next most important thing: wear a helmet! This should be obvious.

Third, no matter which method you choose, use figure 8′s on a bight to tie in every once in a while and always before a crux. This is the most bomber protection you can have regardless of your belay setup.

On to the belay. So many others have talked about playing with ascenders. While they do keep you from sliding down the rope, they are not designed to take falls, they wear on the rope, and they can come off the rope. Furthermore, should you need to down climb you’ll be putting yourself in harms way when you need to release the device. While this might be the cheapest option it certainly seems like the worst to me.

Others have talked about the soloist and silent partner. These are good commercial options designed for soloing but have there own drawbacks. The soloist won’t catch you on head first falls and the silent partner requires rope feeding.

I decided instead to use a gri-gri. I know they are expensive and I actually swore I would never use one but since I found one on the ground for free I decided it would be best suited for the job. While they are not designed for soloing, they provide a reliable lock when falling and allow easy feeding of rope.

I first rappeled the route placing slinged cams to control fall direction with the rope. Then setup a bomber ground anchor and tied in one end of the rope. The other end of the rope went through the gri-gri with the climber end going up to the anchor. I also brought a few slings along for prusiks for backup if needed. Once off the deck a bit I tied my first 8 on a bite and clipped in below the belay devices. As the climb continued I would replace the figure 8 backups as needed. The beauty of using the gri-gri is that once you reach the top you can simply rappel back down with out changing devices.

Overall my experience felt safe and quite peaceful to be alone. Much like lead climbing, with soloing you take things slower and focus on not falling. This makes the climbs more rewarding. Since I really didn’t want to fall this time, I only climbed 5.8-5.9 routes where I had places to tie safety knots. Harder climbs are doable with some planning.