Black Dike/Hassig's Direct or My Thin Ice Refresher

Kevin Mahoney and I went to Cannon today. Things were looking interesting, but quite thin. Omega is forming (but not ready, unless you're insane) and Prozac might be approaching climbability (also for insane people). We did the Black Dike, which I hadn't done before. We didn't do a rock traverse; rather, we did a sometimes-formed direct start to the second pitch. After that, we rapped back down and did a variation to the second pitch called "Hassig's Direct." Instead of shooting off left into a rock traverse, you angle up right around some blocks to another ribbon of ice. Everything was super thin. There were some cool hook moves, but also a lot of dull pick-on-rock noises. I probably have to sharpen my picks again, and I just did them last night. We found some extremely sketchy rap anchors where people had evidently slung some blocks. Some of these were so solid, the blocks could be pulled out by hand! It looked like a little mousetrap for ice climbers. The approach/exit was quite slippery. I'm still recovering from some bronchitis I got a few weeks ago, so I'm not in stellar aerobic shape, but I trudged along anyways. Right now, I'd say it's some snow on ice-covered rocks, which is generally bad. There are a lot of fallen trees all over the trail. Apparently the people who made the trail got it wrong in a bunch of places, but our tracks have now corrected this. Of course, everything looks the same to me, especially in the winter. I'm not very good at that sort of thing.

No pictures yet...but Kevin will send them to me soon. In lieu of photos, some impressions: a pale sliver of a crescent moon at sunrise over the Notch; yellow, twisted ice in evil shapes strewn about wizened, leafless trees at the top of the Dike; and a patina of icy crust served on blocky Cannon granite.

Sodium/Benzophenone

In preparation to make [6Li]HMDS, I had to distill N,N-dimethylethylamine from sodium/benzophenone overnight. Here's the cool color change: