| Summary | None |
| Owner | Eric Gilbertson |
| Creation Date | 2010-10-18 20:17:57 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Eric, Kyle, Aaron, Dave, Chris
Central Gully 10.18.2010 It's already winter up on Mt Washington. We headed out of Pinkham notch on Sunday morning planning to climb Henderson Ridge, a rock route in Huntington Ravine, but the snow line was a lot lower than we expected (down to about 3500 ft). We didn't like the looks of the slippery rock slabs covered with a thin layer of snow, so decided to try to get up central gully, where there might be enough snow to crampon our way up. Another party was ice-climbing up damnation gully, and we wished we had brought ice gear too. Central gully is supposed to be 1 pitch of 5.4 in the summer followed by scrambling, and an easy snow climb in the winter. This time it was a mix of both. We donned crampons and ice axes and climbed up a short snow chute until it started getting steep. I started leading up what we thought might be the 5.4 rock route, but got turned back by when the snow was too thin for crampons but too slippery for my liking. We later learned it was whiteout in the alpine garden with 80mph winds and blowing snow on washington. Maybe it's good we didn't make it up the whole way. Still a fun trip to the ravine! Eric |