Winter Game On!

There was a time not long ago that I couldn't wait for winter to begin. I would nab an ascent of the Black Dike as early as possible and even traveled to the Canadian Rockies several times to catch some Thanksgiving ice! In that last 4 years though I've stretched the rock climbing season as our east coast weather allows. This I traveled down to the Red River Gorge and the New River Gorge for most of November and left wanting more of that warm pocketed rock.

Then something clicks... I'm not sure what it is but every year all of a sudden I am psyched for winter. This year it was a photo posted online by my friend Eric Eisele of Cannon Cliff that sparked it. Out came the dusty ice tools and crampons, digging for warm layers that inevitably still have holes from last season. The whole process of packing for the first winter day out always takes twice as long.

Eric's shot of Cannon. Mean Streak starts with the pillar at the lower left corner

of the cliff line.

I left my house in Vermont at 5am and arrived in the Cannon parking lot a couple of hours later to meet Freddie Wilkinson and Bayard Russell. We had our eye on a route put up about 4 years ago by Will Mayo and Andy Tuthill called Mean Streak. Sure enough the 60 foot pillar at the start was in and the rest of the steep dry tooling, well it looked awesome. It was a great way to kick off the season!

Bayard styling the first pitch off the couch!

A short time-lapse that Freddie put together. More to come soon!

Shenanigans and a New Route!

Recently I had an interesting conversation with my friend Bayard Russell about getting "shut down". It was our second day out after spending all of the previous day on Cannon scratching around in vain to try and get up a hopelessly out of shape Omega. "Why do we always go after these type of lines," I wondered aloud. "These type of lines..." You know, the ones that seem barely there; that lure us in with tantalizing hangers, steep drytooling, and a low probability of success. These are the lines that get us psyched though and part of the deal is that many times things just don't click.

The South Face of Frankenstein with the arrow pointing to "Pole Dance"

This past Sunday after our frustrating fiasco on Cannon, Bayard, Kevin Mahoney and I found ourselves gearing up beneath another one of those tantalizing lines on the south facing upper tier of Frankenstein Cliffs. Kevin had a short chunk of time for the day and suggested a formula which had led us to this prospective line.

1. Difficulty (Is is gnarly enough?)

2. What is the probability of success?

3. Does it form often?

4. Sketchiness

The line...

As we racked up the sun beat down unnervingly hard on the ice above. Kevin walked away for a moment to shoot a few photos and suddenly yelled "watch out!" as a huge hanger cut loose above. Bayard jumped clear and I tucked behind a large maple tree. Our gear, including Kevin's wife Claire's $800 camera, took a beating and was strewn down into the talus below us. After picking up our gear and moving to a safer spot we considered our options.

Kevin and his broken glasses after the ice fall...

Kevin soloed up the short ice pitch and found a safe belay on the far right side of the ledge. Once Bayard and I got to the belay we peered up at the inspiring yellow torpedo of ice hanging from the roof above us. A steady stream of water dripped from the icicle as the sun continued to beat down. Frightened by our earlier experience we rapped to the ground. In the course of that the rope got stuck necessitating Bayard to solo up and free it.

Bayard following the steep ice above the roof...

For the next hour and a half we hemmed and hawed for the as line we had come to climb moved slightly more into the shade. After taking a short walk to verify that everything else was getting just as sun beaten we convinced ourselves to give the line another shot. I grabbed the rack and ropes and soloed up to the belay before we changed our minds.

Myself following the crux

Kevin took the lead and fired the rest of the pitch past super fun climbing on thin smears to an iced up crack with tricky gear and then onto a free hanging icicle which led to a steep finish on plastic WI 5.

Bayard following the crux...

It felt good to get something done and especially good to put up a new line at Frankenstein. Kevin decided on Pole Dance (NEI 5) for the name and grade after the delicate climbing on the narrow ice pillar and the other similarly themed route names on the upper tier.

We had broke through the shenanigans!