| Summary | |
| Owner | MITOC Gallery Administrator |
| Creation Date | 2007-04-27 13:58:26 UTC-0400 |
| Description |
Hobit Couloir, Frankenstein Cliff February 18th 2007 Jen and Vesna After a freezing yurt night at the Intervale, we felt a full breakfast was in order at a cosy coffee shop (sorry, DD!) There we met a talkative ice-climbing dude and exchanged climbing beta & gossip. Driving to Frankenstein brought us closer and closer to a big grey cloud, till we went poof and there was snow, faintly falling upon all the living and the dead, obscuring the cliff and all the climbs. Jen: Let's do Hobit Clouloir. Vesna: Hobit? That sounds familiar. Isn't it the easy little drip next to Pegasus? The easy little drip was a drip but certainly not easy nor little. The bottom part a snow swim, the middle part a scratchy gully, the finish a ~5 meter drip wedged in a hostile crumbly notch in the rock--the route had it all (except ice). And only when facing it, one could grasp the task at hand. (Brrr, I thought when I got there). Jen lead the thing with elegance, leaving nothing to chance, but the drip had to be soloed--not a spot for a screw or nut! She took the straight way up, after rethinking her first moves on the pillar. Once on it, she moved smoothly up and all I saw was a hobit-like red dot on the drip, approaching the notch exit. On my end things were as charged, for a tree barred the view and I chewed my nails unable to make out Jen's progress. Neither could I copy her moves, so I promptly took the wrong way when I attacked the pillar. It felt safe and cosy in the nook to the left of pillar, between the rock and ice, that I tried to hook and stem my way up the left side, but soon there was nothing to hook on the pillar and nothing to front-point on the rock and I had to retrace a few steps and swing over to the face of the drip--brrr, that was scary! But soon I was hooking my way up, realizing how great the climb was as I recovered my cool. Sure, there were steps and hooks hacked into the ice all the way up, but steep is steep, and rock is rock, especially when arranged in a narrow, oppressive notch. I still cannot believe Jen led it. Fantastic lead, Jen!! It snowed peacefully throughout the day and the views were all powdered gray with brightly-colored dots crawling up the ice flows. We walked the nice broken-in trail back to the base feeling accomplished and elated. The drive back started with the snow storm but it soon dried out and we arrived home safe and happy. Vesna PS. I took a lot of photos of other climbers while belaying. The dude in the red jacket lead Pegasus center in one elegant pitch--a pleasure to watch and steal tricks! |