Summer Weather

We climbed Mt. Washington on Friday and Saturday this past weekend. I guided with Jamie on Friday and Brett and Jamie went for it on Saturday. Since I wasn’t there on Saturday I cant really give any details, but Friday was an awesome day on the mountain! Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I’m relying on the climbers to share their photos with me. Friday was the first time this season I climbed the Tuckerman Ravine trail in only a techwick shirt. The thermal was much too hot. The temperature at the base by 8AM was what seemed to be 45 or 50 degrees. We climbed the Lions Head Summer Route which meant we had to cross the notorious avalanche path, but there wasn’t quite enough snow to release. We crossed it one at a time and quickly to be safe. Thanks to the newly fallen 24″ of snow, the rocks were once again covered, which made for much better footing than the previous week. We hit Lions Head by 12PM. The traverse across the summit cone was really soft and whoever broke trail after the new snow, sent the trail about 100 ft low of the normal trail, so we broke some new trail to try to get it back on target. The summit was amazing with 360 degree views. For the first time since January, I got to see the northern presidentials and all of the southern presidentials too. There was a pretty consistent 30mph breeze blowing which chilled you while standing still, but with a wind breaker on, it was quite warm. We spent an hour on the summit and headed down. The descent was hindered by some painful knees, but nonetheless we descended without incident for a 10 hour round trip summit day! Friday was probably the best weather I have had since the start of the season. Send me pictures so I can post them!

The Southern Presidentials from Mt. Washington

A great shot from the top of New England

Hanging out on the summit!

Epic!

Saturday was even better weather than Friday but I’ll try to get Brett to blog about that.

We climbed rocks today with Jokee and Steph from Boston. It was an awesome day for it. The may flies are pretty terrible in the morning, but they went away as things heated up. We got a number of climbs in. They were a little weary of the whole rock climbing thing to start, but they completed routes that they never thought they could. What a great day to be outdoors and it makes it sweeter that we were climbing.

Jokee on "Pine Tree" 5.4 at Crow Hill.

Steph on "Pine Tree" 5.4 at Crow Hill

Jamie assisting Jokee with lowering a climber

Steph high on "Boardwalk" 5.5 at Crow Hill