Howdy friends! This past weekend I got to spend some time with Myron from the not so mountainous state of Ohio! He flew in on Friday for a modified two day skills course. He wanted to do some skills, some ice climbing, and a climb of Mt. Washington. It made sense to pack the days full of climbing seeming he traveled about 1000 miles to get here. Saturday we headed up to Crawford Notch to do some ice climbing and skills. There are very few climbs left at this time of year but we found fat, brittle ice in Left Hand Monkey Wrench. The climbing went very smooth and Myron was a natural climber. We practiced some skills for the rest of the day on the small snowfield above LHMW. We covered crampon technique, self arrest, rappelling, and anchors. We then rappelled down the way we ascended and headed back to the bunkhouse for dinner and a fresh start in the morning. Sunday we woke up early and headed out for Mt. Washington with 7 others who were part of a Boy Scout Troop from Arlington, MA. The day was warm and it wasn’t long before we were sweating up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail, hitting our first break in 45 minutes. The Lions Head Winter Route is still open and the Boy Scouts were loving every minute of the steep snow climbing. We broke treeline to a beautiful day although everyone we saw descending reported high winds, which is a relative term I suppose. The wind below Lions Head was merely a breeze of 20mph. Above Lions Head we were hit with sustained 40mph with gusts of close to 60. The forecast called for increasing winds and clouds throughout the afternoon. We crossed the Alpine Garden and made the decision to turn back due to fatigue within the group. We descended quickly and another successful weekend came to an end. I was happy to get in yet another last ice climb in the lower elevations after thinking the previous weekend would be my last. Now I am sure, if you want to ice climb, you have to go up. Perhaps there will be some photos from the Ravine in our next post…

Since I teased you with huge news in the headline.. I’ll now tease you some more. As you know we are now offering a Wilderness First Aid Course and a Wilderness First Responder Course. We also have two new things brewing that are really big and we can’t wait to launch them. Want to climb often with minimal cash? We may have the answer for you. Stay tuned..