| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2006-02-26 23:41:14 UTC-0500 |
| Description |
Climbing the Ammonoosuc River Polly Anikeeva, Christiian Adams, Chris Glazner, Dan Walker February 25, 2006 Back in a previous adventure, Christiaan and I happened upon the Ammonoosuc River on a wet day. We thought to ourselves, upon seeing the 70 ft waterfall, we should come back when it is frozen. Well, after a week or so of super-arctic conditions in the presidentials, we figured it just might be ready for some climbing. We get up at 4:30 (bad) and cruise up to Crawford Notch and the Cog parking lot. We proceed to don our colorful ice climbing plumage in the parking lot. Up the Ammonoosuc trail. past the barrel of hiking sticks, empty. The trail is relatively nice and flat, with a few inches of powder on it. Chris muses that it would be a good day for skiing. but of course it is always a better day to go climbing. after a few slick slopes, we see a sweet iced ravine up the hill. Not ours, but still with big fat blue, probably on the same order as odells. We get to the base or ours, gem pool. mostly frozen. we start up the river, even as the river continues downward under us. someplaces it is closer to the surface than we would like, and some times we drop down to join it. I think at least it is way easier to climb when frozen on top. Polly retorts that if it were summer, there would be hot babes frolicking in the waterfall, so I concede on this one. the river winds its way through pools and ice bulges. The ice at the bottom is a bit squirrely, so we attempt to keep to the sides. it works most of the time. After a few fun ice problems, we get to a nice headwall with a deep pool, bulgey traverse, and steep gully. Christiaan knocks about half of the climb down, prompting Chris to climb straight up the snow into the trees and around. Polly and I follow Christiaan's route, and find it pleasantly stripped of the rotten ice. we keep going up, with some neat rocky gulleys and icy bits, to a decent bulge. Christiaan works up and around halfway, then continues on belayed up to the top. after everyone gets up, we hang out at belay crater and eat some lunch. We go up some more, with even more short ice problems, and get to a big old headwall (bigger than before). we traverse around, and I lead up a steep gulley (prob2+?), to a notch. once everyone is up, we head up to a giant bulge (30ft 4). we are a bit short on time, so Chris takes the front up some milder ice around and up. Hey! its the trail. we head up to the last series of bulges, and fun ice problems. For the descent, we glissade down the trail to gem pool in about 15min. awesome. then a quick hike out to the cars. the last adventure of the day is always getting home. the roads were crappy, so it took a long time. Mad props for Christiaan and Chris for not killing us. despite Polly and my poor attempts at keeping the drivers awake. finally, I can spell ammonoosuc on the first try. -dan |