60 emails + 6 guys + 1 speeding ticket = some level 1 fun! 3/10/07

Totally skiable “Photo: Patrick Allen”v

Gapers

Toma or Igor sent out an email at the beginning of the week and to entertain ourselves at work Doogie and I kept the thread going all week. The last email came in some time before 4am Saturday morning when I woke up to put my pack together and head over to Frank’s Steak House where Doogie was waiting for my with my rented crampons and axe (that’s right, we got technical!). As the sun came up and we got closer to Mt. Osceola and Greeley Ponds Slides the nicest state trooper walked into the middle of 93 and pointed at me. Having worked for the Boulder DA’s office for years seeing DUIs handed out like candy to small children out of the back of a molesters 1970 Chevy van, I assumed that the cute little guy was doing random sobriety tests. This illusion was fostered by my belief that 10-15 over isn’t worth being pulled over for especially when I didn’t see a police car on the side of the road clocking me(they used a PLANE, a PLANE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). So as you have already figured I didn’t get the joy of passing a field sobriety test but received a speeding ticket faster than anyone has ever been processed before in the history of mankind (seriously, the cute little guy was back with my ticket faster than fat kid is out of a dodge ball game).

After the ticket Doogie and I searched Lincoln NH for the non-existent Dunkin Donuts that we were going to meet the rest of the crew at before we headed to the trailhead. Jerry-rigging my new toys (crampons and axe) onto my pack and seeing Igor, Toma, Ernesto and Huckleberry made me forget all about the ticket (lies, I complained all day) and I was once again wicked stoked!
My Pack

Never having used crampons or an ice axe before I was really hoping that there would turn out to be no need for the devious looking tools and as we skinned up/across the approach I still had hope that we would be able to do without. Huck and I tried as hard as we could to avoid the inevitable but that only got us 20 feet higher than the others. We had just skinned over one of the two frozen Greeley Ponds and bush whacked our way to the river/stream bed when we reached the steeps and needed to switch gear. As you may imagine with a frozen river bed, it was icy.
This ice is nothing “Photo: Patrick Allen”

We all slapped our skis on our packs and our crampons on our feet and that’s where I began to learn how much fun it is play sharp objects. Thanks to Igor, Toma and Ernesto who had experience with the technical gear I feel I became competent after some initial difficulties. The river bed was beautiful and steep with multiple ice flows protruding from the variable, at best, snow.
Initial difficulties

3/4ths of the way up we were faced with a gnarly looking ice fall that created a difficult climb up but the promise of a sick huck on the way down. While no one else believed that I would send the fall, I could tell Huck was interested in paying the postage to send it as well.
Send it!

“So do you think you’ll be able to stop after you drop that?” “Huck, you’re going to send it!” “No I don’t do that.” “You should do it, you’ll kill it!” “nah.”

We stopped for lunch and as conversations with these guys usually do we started talking about other trails we should kill bunnies on and what mythical creatures we saw in the rock slides on adjacent mountains (a flying monkey is always a good guess). Lunch ended and once again we decided to dig a pit that we would ignore mostly because the two guys, who had broken the trail we were following, came over a ridge as we were digging and told us that we were on the safest back country run in NH. The first man was reported to be 50 but looked more like dead and I was incredibly impressed that this corps had made it up to that point. Of course they were cool guys (bad people don’t go back country!) and they liked the novelty of a group of Boston back country skiers who used super high tech MIT computers (google earth, not nearly as high tech as the NH State Police, jerks) to find the trail.
Pits are fun “Photo: Patrick Allen”

As we watched these two take off we put the shovels away and decided to take their advice and started back up the river. We made it up to the ridge where we first saw them, and then we saw a bottleneck and decided that it was time to face the ice playground that was behind us.

This trip was very well documented and being that it is good practice to only go one at a time the way we all waited our turns was commendable (glory hounds) and made the run down that much more fun! None of the drops we took were anything to write home about I will write to you about them.

To start we dropped a cliff that was almost as cute as the trooper who had given me a ticket earlier that morning and Doogie proved that his tele bindings do release (I hear that can be a good thing?). Now don’t think I’m insulting Doogie here, all of us found time to caress the snow and whisper sweet nothings into its chunky ears (I know, I’m practicing for my B romance novel – which, I promise, will not have nearly as many parentheses!). As we made our way down finding ways to use every feature on the way, Huck greased a sick little ice fall, Igor connected a sweet combo of ice and rock drops, Ernesto skied through trees that bunnies couldn’t fit through, Doogie came to play and sent at least two meat packages while Toma, who learned to ski in his 20s, made us all respect Texans and his ability to shralp the ice.
All day

Now you may have connected the fact that I’ve named someone Huckleberry with the act of hucking. After the conversation we had on the way up I wasn’t going to push Huck to drop anything (I wanted all the glory for myself) but I had a feeling that he might be game for the waterfall (that looked much bigger in person) and he was. I had walked away from the fall as I thought everyone was down climbing and came back to Huck standing over the edge scoping his line! We both sent it after spending plenty of time on top licking the stamp and from then on neither of us stopped smiling. Huck hucking

“Photo: Patrick Allen”

Back at the cars I was lame and said goodbye so I could make it to Burlington before the sun went down while everyone recapped and watched video in Lincoln. Either way I had another awesome day with a great group!

Oh yeah, Igor did an Iron Cross!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!