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Hipster Keys
so this weekend was a little bit light on the "training" schedule, but Aly and I made our way up to the lake placid area for the annual mountaineering fest. We headed up friday night, and made it into keene valley by 1 AM, pulled into a trailhead, and crashed in the back of the pickup truck for the night. I slept pretty well. Right now we are sleeping on 2 camping air mattresses, with a 2 inch thick memory foam mattress on top of that, then some blankets and sleeping bags. It is much more comfortable than tent camping.
Saturday morning we got up around 6:45 and headed over to the diner for breakfast. Aly snapped this shot of the moon as she was making her way out of the bed of the truck. looks like its going to be a good day.
We made our way up to the backside of whiteface mountain to climb at a route called chiller pillar. its a WI/NEI 4, which means that its way too hard for me to lead climb. when we got there, another group was on it, leading. so we walked to an adjacent route which looked alot more welcoming, yet still had a steep, difficult crux at the top. nevertheless, i found my balls, roped up and lead it without incident. i was pretty psyched at the accomplishment and view at the top
from the top of this climb, we had a great view of the huge chiller pillar flow, i was able to snap this shot of another climber toproping there.
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the few groups that were here, all shared ropes for the next few hours so we got to climb all the routes.
after this, Aly and I headed into lake placid for some good lunch and local beer (try the lake placid brewing ubu ale)
then we took our ice skates and went skating on mirror lake for a few hrs. Every time we came up we saw people skating here, so we wanted to get the chance to do so. it was alot of fun. the ice was super thick, 12+ inches. and they had 2 fourwheelers going around plowing snow and brushing the ice.
on sunday Aly and I went to cascade mountain to climb the cascade. its an easier mountaineering route (WI/NEI 2) that tops out on cascade mountain. the first 2 sections are the technical climb, so we planned to stick to that and rappel down. when we got there, there were already 10-15 people in front of us on the route (the downfall of going to popular climbing areas on a popular weekend)
another downfall of this, is that during our climb, we were being constantly bombed by falling ice...there were a few really close calls, where a softball size chunk smacked the tree i was belaying from, and exploded just inches from me...because of all this waiting and commotion from the busy route..we cut it short and rappelled down sooner than planned, from a questionable rappel station. I ended up leaving some gear there to beef it up and keep it safe.
it was a rope stretching rappel, with the last 2 feet being off the end of the rope, so it made things a bit more interesting. But most importantly we did everything safely and we came back with nothing more than good experience.
Saturday morning we got up around 6:45 and headed over to the diner for breakfast. Aly snapped this shot of the moon as she was making her way out of the bed of the truck. looks like its going to be a good day.
We made our way up to the backside of whiteface mountain to climb at a route called chiller pillar. its a WI/NEI 4, which means that its way too hard for me to lead climb. when we got there, another group was on it, leading. so we walked to an adjacent route which looked alot more welcoming, yet still had a steep, difficult crux at the top. nevertheless, i found my balls, roped up and lead it without incident. i was pretty psyched at the accomplishment and view at the top
from the top of this climb, we had a great view of the huge chiller pillar flow, i was able to snap this shot of another climber toproping there.
the few groups that were here, all shared ropes for the next few hours so we got to climb all the routes.
after this, Aly and I headed into lake placid for some good lunch and local beer (try the lake placid brewing ubu ale)
then we took our ice skates and went skating on mirror lake for a few hrs. Every time we came up we saw people skating here, so we wanted to get the chance to do so. it was alot of fun. the ice was super thick, 12+ inches. and they had 2 fourwheelers going around plowing snow and brushing the ice.
on sunday Aly and I went to cascade mountain to climb the cascade. its an easier mountaineering route (WI/NEI 2) that tops out on cascade mountain. the first 2 sections are the technical climb, so we planned to stick to that and rappel down. when we got there, there were already 10-15 people in front of us on the route (the downfall of going to popular climbing areas on a popular weekend)
another downfall of this, is that during our climb, we were being constantly bombed by falling ice...there were a few really close calls, where a softball size chunk smacked the tree i was belaying from, and exploded just inches from me...because of all this waiting and commotion from the busy route..we cut it short and rappelled down sooner than planned, from a questionable rappel station. I ended up leaving some gear there to beef it up and keep it safe.
it was a rope stretching rappel, with the last 2 feet being off the end of the rope, so it made things a bit more interesting. But most importantly we did everything safely and we came back with nothing more than good experience.
