6.15.2013 Prusik Peak

The west ridge of Prusik Peak follows the left skyline.

 Anastasia and I headed up to Prusik peak via the Asgard Pass approach. We left the car at 3:30AM after I was unable to sleep due to the fact that I had not brought a sleeping bag. This fact in mind, I brought every article of clothing I had brought. We made Colchuck Lake before the sun had hit anything except for the peaks high above.

Nearing the top of Asgard Pass at 9AM.

We made rapid progress down the snow fields to the base of Prusik Peak where we dropped all the gear except the stuff we needed to make the summit.

An alpine larch, Larix lyallii, in early spring.

We did the short hike from Prusik Pass to the peak in 15 minutes and racked up. The route is simple and straight forward, jogging left before rising to the ridge proper and following it to the summit. It is at least 5 pitches, but 6 if you break the last two into the 5.7 crack and a 5.8 offwidth.

Classic traverse.

Looking down the 5.7 slab pitch.

Anastasia on the belay ledge for the 5.8 offwidth, just after leading the magnificent 5.7 dihedral.

We made good progress up the ridge, finding the climbing easy and consistent. We used a few nuts, a few smaller C4s, but the entire route could be comfortable climbed with a set of nuts only, assuming one is comfortable with slinging horns and whatnot. All too soon, we made the summit.

Prusik summit, Little Anapurna and the Enchantments in the background.

The rappel stations were generally solid and easy to find, although the first one below the summit is a little to the right. The traverse back was icy and steep in spots, but people comfortable with snow should have no problems. We made it back to camp, ate and slept. Soon it was too cold again and I shivered. For hours. At 3AM I couldn't take it anymore so I walked around outside, and did nothing for a few hours until Anastasia was ready to wake up. I knew the way out would take a long time.

Curious mountain goat.

Asgard Pass.

The fat and sassy big bully on the block. We later saw him pigging out on heather while a skinny marmot rooted around in the rocks below for a few scraps.

Walk out we did. For hours and hours. Simply put, the deproach was painfully long and slow, with heavy packs and steep terrain at Asgard Pass. We finally reached the car at 3PM. If you are fit, I recommend doing the climb in one day in running shoes from Snow Lakes TH because it skips the dirt road, Asgard Pass, and generally makes a short, but spectacular route more palpable. Take a small rack and don't bother with the big cams because any place they could be used, the climbing is too easy for protection to be necessary.

4.29.2012 Rumney, NH

Instead of making the usual trip to the Adirondacks, we decided to head to New Hampshire and climb at Rumney.  The group this time was a little larger than normal.  Charles, Eloise, Cam, and Joe all came along for the trip.  This is a pretty popular place, so we expected  to see a few more people than we normally do in the Daks.  Overall, it was another successful day, ten routes completed.

Area: Jimmy Cliff

Routes:Lonesome Dove

           Junco

           The Nuthatch

           Hammond Organ

Area: Bonsai

Routes:Masterpiece

           Kamikazee

           Centerpiece

Area: 5.8 Crag

Routes:The 5.8 Crack by the Road

           Snake Skin Slab

           Bolt and Run

I had a long day of meetings for my fraternity, so we had to leave Troy at around 6pm.  The drive to Rumney was a little over three hours.  We arrived at the parking lot near telephone pole #27, put some money in the drop box to get a parking pass for the next day, and then set up camp.  Charles and Eloise slept in the bed of his truck, Cam and I slept in the tent next to the truck in a tent, and Joe slept on the ground next to the tent.  

While we were waiting for water to boil before tossing in a few bricks of Ramen, we all messed around on a couple boulders surrounding the parking area.  After dinner it was time to get a good nights rest.

The first stop of the day was Jimmy Cliff .  Getting here was pretty simple, just walk along the road until pole #37 and then follow the marked trails.  There was plenty of signage to direct climbers to all the different areas.  The first climb of the day was Lonesome Dove, which Cam lead before setting up the other rope on Junco .  After TRing on these for a little while, I led The Nuthatch.  Afterwards, Cam led Hammond Organ and then Eloise and I climbed it.

Cam on Lonesome Dove

Belaying Cam on Lonesome Dove

Joe following The Nuthatch, Eloise on Hammond Organ

Cam leading Junco on the left, Eloise cleaning Lonesome Dove on the right

One of the other groups climbing here said that it would be good to check out  Bonsai, as there are plenty of high quality climbs between 5.8 and 5.11 there.  The first tick here was on Masterpiece, which Cam lead and I followed.  This crag was plenty overhanging, even though the photos do not really show it.  I wanted to get a lead in here also, so we walked to the right side of the cliff to Kamikazee.  Once again, we cycled through on this climb before heading to Centerpiece.  Cam had a solid lead here, and I followed.

Cleaning Masterpiece

Ropes were set up on nearly every route

Cam leading Centerpiece

Cam up on Centerpiece

Starting up to clean Centerpiece

Cleaning Centerpiece

Nice and juggy, but plenty overhanging

The crowds were gathering at Bonsai, so instead of waiting to get on more routes we headed down to the 5.8 Crag to check out what it had to offer.  It was a worthwhile trip, as there were some pretty good climbs.  I started off leading Snake Skin Slab, graded at 5.8, but Cam and I both agreed that it seemed a little sandbagged.  Oh well, still a great climb, great feet and delicate hands throughout the upper half.  Cam took the lead on Bolt and Run, which Eloise and I followed.  Afterwards we broke out the minimal trad rack that we took along for Cam to lead The 5.8 Crack by the Road.  The route name is a little peculiar because it is actually a 5.7 climb.  I followed to pull the protection and Eloise finished off the day rappelling down off the route because there were no quicklink anchors.

Charles attempting Snake Skin Slab

Joe attempting Snake Skin Slab

Eloise working her way up the climb

Cam leading Bolt and Run

Seconding on Bolt and Run

Big thanks to Clif Bar for supplying us with the energy we needed to climb all day long without much of a break. 

4.21.2012 Barton High Cliffs

Rain was in the forecast from 2am Saturday morning until the end of Sunday, so it didn't seem like ideal weather for an overnight climbing trip starting Friday night.  Cam and I decided to give it a go anyways, planning to aid climb if the weather was too bad.  Armed with all of our normal gear, a 60m static rope, 2 jumars, and a tent, we left Troy at 4:20pm and drove toward exit 25 on 87N.  We decided to drive past where we had to park and look for a general store to get some extra food to eat before we headed out to find a tent site.  This was a good move, we got a box of couscous and other snacks, including a bag of Doritos that we left in car for the ride back.  There are no trails or designated camping areas around the cliffs, so we had to navigate through the forest to end up at our final destination for the night.

I think we found the only section of flat and clean ground in the area, and it was just four feet away from a plentiful water source.  After setting up the tent and drinking some water from the stream, we decided to hike towards the cliffs to get a better view of what we would be climbing the next day.

This is what we saw.

Photosynth: Interactive Panorama

The viewpoint was only 20 minutes away from the tent.  Now it was getting dark, so we turned on headlamps and walked back to the tent to make dinner, organize gear, and get some sleep.  It was around 9pm when we laid down on the sleeping pads.  The plan was to wake up at 5am and get to the cliffs by 6am, but that ended up changing.  We were both awake at 3:45am and decided to make breakfast and head out early instead of going back to sleep.

Cam making the first moves on P1

The first route of the day was Final Frontier (5.8+ G 280').  The Adirondack Rock guidebook gave this route a 3 star rating.  Cam led the first two pitches, and I took the third.

 Instead of stepping right around the overhang on P2, we went directly under it and then up the arete.  This led to the face climbing, which was much longer than it looked from below.

View from the P2 belay

Approaching the roof on P2

Slapping rock under the roof to test which blocks are loose.  There was a pretty big selection of rock that had to be avoided so I didn't end up crushed at the belay.

Cam at the P3 belay

All geared up for P3

 After belaying Cam up P3, I lowered him to the ledge below that had an enormous tree stump and then rapped down off the tree I was anchored to.  The tree stump had a couple of old slings around it with two rap rings, but we added a new sling to it instead of trusting the old gear.  We also clipped a quickdraw to the new sling and the rope for safety if the rap rings were bad.  Hauling the static rope this entire time was well worth it when it came time for this rappel.  It was used as a tag line when we did a single line rappel on the dynamic rope.  The 70m dynamic rope barely reached the ground, so this was a pretty long drop.

Full shot of the rappel

Coming down the line

Free hanging for the last 30 meters

Scrambling across the boulder field to the next route

 The next route was The Excellent Adventure (5.9- G 200').  The guidebook shows that this is a 3 pitch climb, but we tied it together in 2.

Route Description

Right leaning crack

Cam starting up the crack, a little wet at first.

There was a fixed belay anchor up where Cam is the the shot above, but he opted to build a new one instead.  The old one consisted of an original Hexcentric and 2 micronuts, each with their own carabiner and toed to a master point with an old cordlette.  This made me believe that someone a long while ago had abandoned their gear, but not really sure.  There were a few other spots around the cliff where similar gear was left behind.  Cam belayed me up off of a red tricam backed up by two nuts.  Up here we switched belays to continue the climb.

P2/3 started off with a step down past the fixed gear and then a dirty traverse left to the prow.  From here it was easy climbing up to the belay/rappel station.  We were able to make it down to the ground with one rappel on the 70m rope.

Back on solid ground, we packed up our bags and hiked to the Sunset Arete Area, further left along the cliff.  The route that we first went to was Sunset Arete (5.7 PG 150').  The second pitch was supposed to be dirty, so not really worth the climb.  Instead, we only did the first pitch (70').  I decided to give it a try on lead, but backed down part way up the arete when it appeared that there was no protection for a while, and I didn't really feel like hitting the deck if I fell.  Cam ended up finding some interesting nut placements and built an anchor off of a tree.  We lowered on the other side of the arete to end the day with some carefree top roping.  The first route that Cam TR'd was Son of Cirrhosis (5.8+ G 60').  To the right of this route was a nice looking face with tiny positive edges and some smooth bulges that we messed around on for a little while.

The rain ended upholding off until we started to pack up our bags at the Sunset Arete Area.  There were periods of heavy rain on the hike back to the tent, but overall we got very lucky.  We made a couple more bags of Ramen when we got back and then packed up the tent in the rain.  The rain stopped on the hike back to my car, which took an hour, and then started again when we were on the road.  Overall, this was another great trip.  No injuries, abandoned gear, and plenty of food and water.