| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2004-09-16 00:50:56 UTC-0400 |
| Description | Trip Report: Rumney Climbing Trip 07-19-03 ------------------------------------------- MITOC mixed-level sport climbing trip to Rumney Crag in New Hampshire Organizer: Deb Fraser Participants: Nik Andersson, Catherine Cheung, Joe DeCiantis, Vladimir Fedorov, Will Hawkins, Matt Ketterling, Ben Ketterling, Lorenzo Maccone, Igor Makarov, Chris McNeil, Chris Scott, Leslie Scott Most of us set off for New Hampshire on Friday evening. We were going to stay overnight at Camelot Cabin in Rumney, and hit Rumney Crag on Saturday morning. Rick Abbot, Jason Lapenta, Solar Olugebefola, Chris and Leslie Scott, and Nik were due to join us at the crag in the morning. I drove up, leaving from MIT, taking Joe, Catherine, and Will as my passengers. They were a funny bunch, making interesting conversation on the way. In particular, Joe and Catherine, who had met on the Rose Ledge trip about a month earlier, had developed a love-hate relationship. One in which they would both make jokes at the expense of the other, but really, you could just feel the love ;) This had actually begun on the previous trip, when Joe was carrying a lot of weight, probably 2 ropes, making his hike out a bit tougher. So Catherine made a suggestion that she should help him with his burden, and of course this was jokingly taken as a knock against his manliness (yeah it's a macho thing). We saw the most gorgeous red-toned sunset from the highway in the vicinity of Concord, which increased our spirits that we would have nice weather the next day. The drive went relatively smoothly until driving along route 25 toward Rumney, when I saw blue lights in the distance behind me. My first instinct was to pull over, thinking that it could be an emergency or perhaps I had made a mistake at the rotary I had just passed? The car behind me started to pull over too, but then took off. So it ended up that I got fined for the car that was clocked as speeding behind me, and now I have to go to court to straighten it out. Not the best way to start off a trip, but let it serve as a warning. Turns out the town of Rumney was crawling with police officers on patrol that weekend. Is it because of the heavy climber traffic? Finally we got to the cabin, and as the keyholder, I let everyone in. People unpacked their things and made themselves at home. Joe and a couple others spotted a mouse on the wall near the ladder to the loft. (Yes, there are mice at Camelot, which is why we need to mouse-bag our food on a branch in the kitchen). So Joe pulled out his camera to take pictures of it. The mouse was confused by the commotion. It first popped into a little hole in wall and then came back out again to check things out. It came down and sat on top of the circuit breaker box, where Joe got a prime picture of it. Joe was also trying to convince Catherine that we should called her "Cat" for short, entitling her to go after the mouse. She was not amused. And of course, it is best to keep away from the mice in case they are carrying disease. Before turning in for the night, I had all the participants sign liability waiver forms (sign their souls away), and attempted to divide the large group into three different climbing teams for splitting up at the cliffs the next day, while others discussed geometry and molecular biology on the white board behind me. Little did I know that my effort would be in vain. Next morning, we rose at 6:30 AM, with the plan to pack up and meet the others at Rumney parking lot for about 7:30-7:45 AM. Everything went smoothly, and everyone was quick to help in cleaning up. Chris McNeil's carpool headed out early to make a pit-stop at Dunkin' Donuts. The rest of us arrived at the parking lot at just about 7:30, and started to get organized. I handed out club gear to those who needed it, and we waited for the remaining Boston folk to arrive. At about 10 to 8, Nik arrived. At about 5 to 8, with still no sign of the others, we decided to head up to the Parking Lot Wall (the wall closest to the parking lot) to start climbing, and the others knew to look for us there. Chris and Leslie showed up sometime during the first hour. Turns out that Rick and Jason did not show up at all that day. I hoped that nothing bad had happened to them. I would learn later that Jason ended up being too exhausted and not feeling well, and Rick had been called into work at the last minute. In their absence, we were a little short of ropes, and one leader, but the group improvised very well despite this. We ended up splitting into two groups on the fly instead of three. After warming up at the Parking Lot Wall, roughly half the group moved on to the Meadows area, as things started to get busy with more people arriving at the cliffs. The other half of us stayed at Parking Lot Wall to finish working on a couple more climbs. I was proud that I led "Chloe's Breakfast Special", a long and very nice 5.8, for the first time, and very smoothly as well. I also helped coach Catherine, Igor, and Vladimir to do their first lead on "A Week With Pete", a nearby 5.2 route. Joe and I had our cameras out and took pictures. At about noon time, our group decided to head over to Jimmy Cliff, a cliff much further out and up, which looked from the guidebook, like it also had a good variety of route difficulty, 5.3 - 5.12. I was eager to check out this area, as I hadn't been there before. It turned out to be quite a hike for most of group, who were not used to hiking, esp with heavy packs, as you need to hike a ways down the road, and then up some steep terrain (maybe covering about a mile or so total). But they made it, and we found the multi-pitch bolted 5.3 slab route, "Clip A Dee Doo Dah", to be open. So we starting setting up, with Matt as our multi-pitch sport coach. Matt and Joe teamed up to tackle the climb first. Next Vladimir and Igor went up, after the first team had moved on to the 2nd pitch. Cathy and I went third. As I approached the belay anchor between pitch one and two, after leading the first pitch, Matt and Joe were on their way down by rappel. I thought to myself, would have been better if they had just walked off to prevent criss-crossing the traffic lines, but it wasn't a big deal since Matt, after all, knew what he was doing. They had anchored to the bolt above me, while I was at the belay station, belaying Catherine up the first pitch. Matt had left a runner of draws at the belay station for us to use to hang back and belay from. As Catherine reached me, Matt and Joe had rappelled to the bottom leaving their rappel anchor draws for Igor and Vladimir. Here's where things got sticky. Again, it would have been easier if they'd walked off, but no, Igor and Vlad had to try rappelling after the example of the first group. (Next time, we'll have to remember to communicate more clearly beforehand). So Cathy and I were stuck at the belay station, waiting for them to come down and free up the bolts above us. We passed the time, by admiring the gorgeous view from the cliffside, and taking pictures. You couldn't ask for better weather to be stuck in a traffic jam on a cliffside. Igor had come down and clipped into both draws at the rappel bolt above us. Vlad followed him down, and not sure what to do, decided it would be easier to anchor to the bolt above Igor (they had asked me for advice, but I was no help, although I realize now what they should have done). But then Vlad couldn't reach Igor, and they had trouble switching off the rope for rappel. Finally Matt free soloed up the side of the climb to give much needed instruction. Since he was soloing, Catherine remarked that he looked like a monkey, and suggested that he scratch his head. He happily obliged to entertain us, adding "Oook Oook" sound effects and all. After Igor started rappelling down, I began leading up the second pitch skipping past the two bolts where Vlad was clipped in and cluttered with rappel anchor draws. Finally Catherine and I topped out and walked off -- to prevent any more hassle with rappel. The only problem was that Cathy's shoes were too small for her, and her feet were really hurting, so we had to take it slow on the descent. Unfortunately, because everything had taken so long, Ben and Will, the novices in our group, did not get to try this climb. But hopefully they still enjoyed catching the views at least as we walked around the cliffs, and the climbs they did earlier that day. I myself didn't get in many climbs that day, only 4, but it was a nice day just to be outside. Then we headed back to the parking lot to meet up with the others. Chris M. and Lorenzo, of the second group, had gotten in more climbing and were satisifactorly worn out. The rest had already left. The plan was to go swimming after the climb, but no one else, besides me, was interested in dipping in the swimming hole in the Baker River right near the cliffs. (I don't know why, I like that little swimming hole.) So Chris McNeil's carpool which included Matt, Ben, and Lorenzo just decided to head back. The rest of us, Will, Catherine, Joe, Vlad, Igor and I agreed to head to a nearby lake to swim. But the confusion did not end up on cliff! My car was to follow Vlad's, as they supposedly knew where they were going. However, Will, who had talked to them about the lake, while I was at the bathroom, thought they were referring to Stinson Lake which was several miles up the road from Rumney town center. However, as we followed them, they started heading in the opposite direction! So then we stopped to turn around and waited for them to come back, which they did. Finally we worked it out that they had been talking about some other lake further off the I-93 highway, and we decided we would go to Stinson Lake instead as it was undoubtedly closer. We saw a sign for "Public Waters Ahead" as we approached the lake, but didn't see the public lake access as we drove past it, just private homes and docks. Then we turned around and parked on the side of the road behind some cars that were parked obviously for some big party at this one house. We walked up the lakeshore toward the group of locals camped out in lawn chairs in front of their dock, to ask them where the public access to the water was. One said they thought we had passed it, down the other end of the lake. But then they invited us to use their dock and lakeshore. One man said jokingly "Just say you're one of the family, no one will ever know." They told us to even help ourselves to the floaty toys if we wanted, and asked us if we wanted anything to eat. Apparently it was some multi-generation party. We accepted their hospitality to swim, with immense gratitude, but couldn't take their food. We asked what the occasion was. "Say Happy Birthday to my mother", said one of the women. Looks like we crashed Grandma's birthday party. The water was really refreshing, not to mention fun, jumping and diving off the docks. Not wanting to overstay our welcome, and as Catherine was starving, we headed into shore after about 20 minutes. We said thank you, again wishing Grandma Happy Birthday. Joe slyly added, "So, you must be turning what, 45 this year?" There was a chuckle from the crowd, and we were welcomed to come back to the lake anytime ;) The family asked us where we were from, and we told them that we were in town from Boston for climbing, and they were asking us about that, esp. as one woman has a brother whom might like to climb up there. Very nice people. If we ever have lakeside property, we need to be that hospitable. Joe offered us blueberries in the car to tide us over for dinner. Bless him, they were really good. We headed out to Plain Jane's Diner on Rte 25 for dinner. A neat little place with good hearty food at modest prices, so even poor grad students, on their meager budget of $12/week for luxury items (as Joe informed us, and this was an ongoing joke) can afford it. Just in case you're wondering, "Chicken a la King", the special that night, is a bed of mashed potatoes covered with chicken stew. After dinner, with a ratio of 4 to 2, the girls actually had to wait for the guys to finish in the bathroom! Back at the car, the remainder of Joe's pint of blueberries was on the dash. So I stole a few and put the container back quickly before he came. He joins us at the car, and completely unaware of what had just transpired, says "Anybody want some more blueberries?" In an overly innocent tone, I respond, "Oh yes, I'd love some!" Then he adds, "You can have the rest if you want, I'm stuffed." What a guy ;) View trip pictures at: http://www.wildmountain.net/ under "MITOC Trips" Deb |