Whitney-Gilman in the Winter

Dave and a gaggle of HMC hangers-on went up to Mt. Washington this past weekend, thereby beating me to the start of the ice season. Not to be outdone, I headed out of bed very early this morning to go climb the Whitney-Gilman Ridge with Kevin Mahoney. Now, it may not look much like winter here in Boston, but it's full on winter in the Notch. It was snowing all day and I could barely see the road from up on the climb until around 3 pm. It was cold, too...around 15 F all day. So winter's here!

The hike up to the cliff was pretty tricky today. I've seen it worse, but this was no joke. There was enough snow to make everything slippery and hide the boulders from view, but not enough to actually provide any support. I'd put my foot down on a promising patch of snow, sink into a hole between boulders, and have to get up again. I cursed a lot. I guess that's the early season for you.

We made our way up there by 9. The Ridge is a fairly moderate summer outing at 5.7. In the winter, however, it's a different story. It was totally covered in rime today and the climbing was desperate. I had done this route with Kevin two years ago, and since then, I've become a lot stronger and more experienced, so I thought I would see what it was like. I even foolishly thought I would want to lead it this season. But unfortunately, I'm still nowhere near good enough to do it yet.

There was enough snow to necessitate the use of crampons, which is bad news, because the climb is filled with downward sloping surfaces, none of which are useful for feet. The snow also covered all the holds, so I'd be locked off on a tool, alternately brushing snow off or raking wildly for tiny rounded edges above me. I found myself holstering a tool and holding pinches and slopers for all I was worth with one hand, and torquing with a tool in my other. There'd be super steep bits like the pipe pitch where I'd be doing fully 5.10 moves, and then once again I'd grovel belly first onto a 45 degree slab with no handholds or feet. In the summer, you'd whistle and smear up in your rock shoes without a second thought, but good luck doing that on rime! It was very Scottish.

I fell about half a dozen times and was honestly scared for the whole thing. I don't know what it was exactly. I've done a fair bit of hard winter climbing, even on the lead, and normally I'm pretty well put together mentally for them. It didn't help that there was a bunch of rope drag in places, so I didn't really have a very tight belay. At one point I did ten feet of what I thought were desperate drytool moves on a steep section, only to slide off the slab at the top of it, and right back to where I started! I don't like falling in crampons. This isn't Kevin's fault though...he did a great job, and I shouldn't need the rope to babysit me! (Actually, before I did that part, Kevin told me "oh, hey, this part's kinda hard...but just pull up and if you reach up way back, there's a blind open hook somewhere...yeah, heh, good luck." That certainly bolstered my confidence(!). But seriously, Kevin's a great guide, he's just much, much better than I am at this sort of thing.)

Just before I started the last pitch I looked up at it and thought: "Shit. That looks ridiculous. I'm not sure if I can follow that, let alone lead it!" But it was either drytool for all I was worth for 60 m, or suffer the undignified consequences. I was forced to take a deep breath, dig deep, and make it happen. So the climb kicked my ass, I'm covered in scrapes and bruises, and I may have had to cheat by drytooling on pitons, but I made it up there. Usually, I don't care about getting to the top, but this time, it was worth it.

The Dike and Fafnir look very thin at the moment. Kevin says they're "in but tricky," which for the rest of us means "not in." I think I'll wait till January for those...