Hidden Gully Adventure! Smugglers Notch VT

So this winter I have been trying to treat each winter day like it is the last one before the thaw and if I have a chance to get out ice climbing I go...

One of the premier Ice climbing spots in the Northeast is smugglers notch.  Stephanie and I are blessed in that it is a 30 minute drive to the parking lot from our house.  We have the ability to pick and choose our days and go out on the good ones climbing when we have the free time and are not working on the house.

I have been training a lot for the rock climbing season so it has been a good practice ground this year.

I did a trip with Philip from Montreal a few weeks ago and it was perfect.  In early winter season conditions with little snow there are many climbs that are long and ice the whole way that later in the winter just fill with snow and become more avalanche prone.  Philip had never really been to Smugglers notch before so I gave him the grand tour and we went up Hidden Gully.  It is a great climb in that it is longer than many climbs in the notch and has a lot of terrain.  All said taking the middle line up the climb is about 1000 feet of vertical terrain plus 1.8 miles hiking both ways.  It made for a great day climbing and the winter has been like this almost all season with just a few warm ups.  There have been a lot of good blue-bird weekend days.

Start of the hike in from the road. 

Entrance to the gully on the first pitch

Top of the first pitch at the belay

Philip leading pitch two

After Philip had gone out of sight on the 4th pitch

Rappel down easy gully on descent

Looking up easy gully from the descent.  The hike down started from here. 

My garden and Newest Workspace

I have been trying to get back into climbing as of late and work/weather/house/other has ruled my life.  The one thing I feel really good about is my newest revised space which is under my porch/awning.  I have also put a hang board here and I am going to try doing pull-up sessions Tabata style for a while I think.

Jackson Falls

A couple weekends ago I was in the Chicago-St Louis circuit for work so I took the weekend and rocked it in a rental Yaris for 12 bucks a day and went to Jackson falls.

It is a really neat area.  It is sandstone but it is mostly friction technique and movements with interspersed pockets and overhangs.  I got in on Friday night and slept in the Yaris which will barely provide enough room for someone that is 5.10.  The camping scene here seemed like the best free area that I have seen in a long time.  It is within walking distance of the crags (10 minutes or less) and also free.  Most sites are near water and a lot of them get morning sun. I felt like this area was really unique.

The climbing area is pretty neat.  it is a canyon type feel with short (read 30-75 feet) walls.  The hike in is from the top and you can hike and rap or hike the long way around.  There are a lot of  "towers" that are really just short sections where the block has eroded from the wall providing more of a large boulder with sport climbing on it.  These were the primo routes to me at least because there are a lot of arretes and slopers with a unique climbing feel. 

For me the hard climbing was in between the angle changes where each time there were slopers tough friction footwork and unique sandstone holds that felt grainy but not too sandy. 

I thought the area was really good and I was blessed with finding some random partners that were happy to belay me.  It was much better than top rope self belays. I ended up getting a belay on 7 climbs and 4 of them were moderate 5.10s and the rest were warm ups.  Given that each day started with snow on the ground and the rock being wet I was very fortunate to have there be enough sun to melt the snow and dry the rock.   One of them was called group therapy and I thought it was really good.

All in all I thought it was a good off season trip.

A Day Back Home

I was in Boston visiting my parents for the weekend about a month ago and I took some shots of my hometown bouldering spot in Hammond Pond, MA.  It is a great area and has some really awesome concentrated climbs on cobble stone that supposedly climb like maple canyon. I got one V4 and a couple of V2s and had a really good time.  It was surprising how much easier some of the climbs felt than when I was learning and in highschool years ago.  I took some self shots here but didn't get anything really good because I was alone. None the less, it was a great time.

North and South Kinsman

I was really grumbling when my wife kept asking me to go hiking with her and friends in December for an overnight.  inside my head I was thinking " December?  Are you crazy it is cold out there and there is never any good snow!" .  In the end I decided it would be fine and I could survive a single night outside in order to satisfy the camping bug for a while.

At first we thought that people would want to come but it turns out that almost everyone does the same grumbling as I do and talks themselves out of it.  We found that it is just the hardcore people that wind up coming.  After inviting 12 people we ended up with us and one other.   It was cold and the best part was the lean to and the winter wonderland on Saturday into Sunday.   On Saturday morning I snapped some excellent pictures of this Pine Marten that was pretty tame due to the time of year and its level of hungriness.  He was skulking around the lean to looking for scraps.  All in all I would say that it was a great time out and it definitely kept me from doing my long delayed house projects.

When you still have it!

Today on the way home from work I stopped in the park near the house and found that the locals had set up a line.  It was a good walk and  anice day for it.  It was nice to know that I still have it.  It brings back my dreams of walking a highline.

They gave me their card since they also make films. www.noreastfilms.com

Getting back into my routine!

Well this last weekend I was able to work on house projects and cleaning and make it out bouldering for a cold day in Smugglers Notch.  The leaves are gone and there were a lot of hikers and very few boulderers out there.  I think mostly because there was some frost in the ground and all the overhanging boulders still had frost under them.  Soon I will be only able to ice climb or climb in gyms.

I got to send Nemesis again with just one pad and no spotter and I felt that this was a great accomplishment for me proving that once you learn the moves it can be incredibly easy and not even taxing or scary the second time.   I had no camera with me so I included the pictures that Steph got this summer of me on the problem working it prior to getting the first send that happened about a month ago.  I also find that this one is all in how you hang on the sloping holds.   The first two are top of the notch which goes at V2 and the second three are getting through the first crux of Nemesis for me which goes at V5.