Tuesday, November 8, 2011

A Partial Winter Ascent of Moby Grape


So me and my friend Kathleen, who I work with up in Acadia, decided it would be a good idea to climb  Moby Grape a 5.8 (though steep for its grade, others might disagree) 1000ft, 8 pitches (aka 8 rope lengths) up Cannon Mountain in Franconia Notch, New Hampshire at the beginning of November.  For those who don't know Cannon used to be the home of "the Man of the mountain" which is still New Hampshire's logo even though it fell off a few years ago.  This is a picture of the Cannon Cliffs...it is HUGE!  It is the closest thing us north easterners get to big wall, big mountain climbing.


Due to extenuating circumstances I went to be around 3:30am.  One of my best friends, Ty, was leaving town and we had to give him a good send off.  But I told Kathleen I would be up and ready to go at 6am.  So that does leave much time for sleep.  But according to the great climbing and mountaineer Jon Tierney "sleep is overrated."  So I woke up at 5:30 started packing my things and made a quick breakfast.  I drank about 1 liter of water, 2 eggs coated with about 1/4 stick up butter wrapped in a tortilla.  I packed the cold stuff cause though it was 50 degrees out it was still November.  Kathleen picked me up a little after 6 and we started our trip.  As we pulled into the trail head parking lot below Cannon, we could see tons of snow all over the summit, which was kinda of disconcerting.  I was kind of hoping we would get lucky and there would be no snow.  But hey its just one more challenge to push through.  We left the car at around 9am and started to head up to the base of the cliff.  The approach took around 30 to 45 minutes and at some points was more exhausting than the climb cause you are cruising up through a big talus field.  For those who don't know Talus is loose and broken rocks that develop below the base of a cliff due to rock fall.  

The first few pitches of the climb are a NARLY hand crack.  So to climb it you pretty much just stick your hand in and twist it until it catches.  And that hand will stick better than any Jug. [Jug is another climbing term that stands for a big hold]  Should have worn tape cloves cause my hands got ripped to shreds.  This is a picture of Kathleen mid climb, about 400 ft up.

So just a bit of knowledge for those who don't know about climbing.  Because there is no pieces stuck in the rock we have to put our own gear in.  Since this gear cost a lot of money, we want it back.  The way this works is the leader climbs up placing gear to protect themselves.  As the leader climbs up they place gear ever so often and then climb above it.  Pretty much there is no way around this.  So if you go above your piece of gear and then fall, you fall double the distance that you were above the piece.  If this doesn't make sense I can explain it to you in person.  But if you are following what Im saying then you realize this could get really heady.  If you are 20 ft above your last piece you have a chance of falling 40 ft, which is a LONG FALL!  So if it gets dangerous you place more pieces of gear.  Once the leader gets to the top they sets an anchor and belays the follower up on top rope as they take out all the gear.  In a sense it is a leave no trace principle because you leave nothing in the wall.

[This here is a picture of the gear the leader must carry up.  This colorful combination of metal is placed equally on both sides of the harness to equalize weight and can weight up to a total of 10 to 20 lbs, which may not seem that bad but how many you have trouble climbing with just your own body weight.  Well no add 20lbs.  Yea!]

The crux [aka the hardest part of the climb] is usually the first or third pitch, but the funnest pitch is the fifth.  The fifth pitch is the finger of fate.


The finger of fate is the large rock that is sticking diagonally out of the cliff about 700 ft in the air.  There are many ways to do it but my favorite is to campus [all hands no feet] across from right to left, then heel hook and pull myself up and ride while taking a peak down the whole cliff.  Once your here you can really appreciate where you are.


After the finger it is smooth sailing.  Through now the sun was behind the mountains and the cool November air started to get to us.  The snow was starting to seep through our climbing shoes and I could feel my toes get pretty numb.  So every chance possible I had to jump around just to get blood to them.  At this point we were also wearing gloves for belaying.  We had to move quick because we were could not be on the cliff at dark.  And sunset this time of year is around 5 so we had to move it.  I ran up this sketchy wet section that was being dripped on by snow and Kathleen cruised this sweet overhanging section after that.  Then the last pitch which is pretty easy I pretty much ran out to the top, trying to move fast and get us out of there.  Getting to the top and wanting to move fast I jammed myself between some boulders and put Kathleen on a old school hip belay to the top.  She laughed as she saw my anchor.  For those who don't know what a hip belay is is it a belay where you wrap around your waist and belay the person up with parallel strands in front of you.  The key is it should be in relatively easy terrain, you need a good stance (preferable stuck between some rocks) and you need to keep the rope tension at all times.  If Kathleen did fall it is a lot easier to catch body weight fall than a dynamic one.

We spent a few minutes on top getting food and warming up then headed down.  At this point my tiredness was getting to me and with the ice and snow descent I was not in a good place.  Every climber knows that the descent is the most dangerous part.  I know this more than other people due to my previous accident with rappelling.  So patiently we made the descent, taking close to 2 hours even though on a good day the descent only takes 45 minutes to an hr.  So we made an epic ascent of Moby's in the November and it was awesome.  The Black Dike is still not in yet but hope to get back here soon for some ice climbing.


[The Black Dike is the dark spot in this picture.  In the winter this section gets covered by ice and any ice climber who thinks they are a real ice climbing will get on this some time in their career.  I am not an ice climber per se but I would like to be, so maybe one day I will get on this.]

Until the next climb, muckle hard and keep exploring!

Monday, November 7, 2011

Introduction to Climbing

Well folks I figured I would start a climbing blog.  Partially for myself and partially for my family and other people who want to know what am doing with my life.  So as most of you know, I am dedicated my life to climbing.  Don't worry its not like dedicating my life to the monastery, you can still have a job, a family and some free time...well maybe.  Climbing is my more than my hobby it is my religion, my enlightenment, my breath, my lover, my best friend and my worst enemy.  It is how I find solace in life.  How I feel alive on a daily basis.  It is what drives me to be better and healthy.  Climbing teaches me to push foreword even in times of trouble and hardship.  It teaches me to problem solve and keep a cool head in difficult situations.  One thing I truly believe is that the true character of a person comes out when they are in a high stress and life threatening situation.  Climbing helps me come to terms with this high stress feeling all the time.  So people may call me an adrenaline junkie, or call me crazy but climbing is far more than loving the feeling adrenaline.  Though adrenaline does make things a lot more exciting.  But climbing is also about calming ones adrenaline and being able to lower ones stress levels.  Truthfully I think everyone should climb just for this purpose.  Hey maybe it will become a world renowned stress treatment.  So to all my friends and family lets go climbing and you can see my world that I love so much.