Hey gang, it’s Jamie your friendly NEM guide fresh from the land of the pine trees and hipsters, Portland,OR. I arrived in Portland late Thursday night where my friend, and long time climbing partner Dave Newton was waiting. After a short discussion on what we had been up too on the drive, we hit the sack for the night. The next day we started planning our assault on Mt. Hood. After packing and a quick run to Fred Meyers ( A west coast Wal-mart) for some groceries we were on our way to the mountain.
Dave and I had originally planned to climb the Devil’s Kitchen headwall so our packs were heavy to say the least. After a few hour hike to around 9,000 ft. We dug out camp and set our tent. Shortly followed by a hot tea and a broken tooth at the hands of a frozen snickers bar. After our late night snack, we turned in for the night for our 2 am wake-up. We woke up early to here the sounds of a very feisty mountain indeed. The sounds of constant avalanches and ice fall rocketing down at us like bullets. We made the Hogsback at roughly 10,500 ft. our summit for the day.
We spent the next day hanging out around Portland and trying some amazing food and micro-brews. The night before our second attempt while having a couple brews with Dave’s long time friend Simon we had thought we had scooped up another climber for our ascent on Mt. Hood. After a couple of hours talking and checking out some of Simons motorcycles, we thought he was in. Unfortunately, Simon had a few too many the night before summit day so he had to pass on this round.
We headed to the Timberline lodge (were the outside shots of the Shining were filmed) once again and spent the night in the car in the parking lot. We woke up around 2:30 am for our alpine style push on Mt. Hood. We came out of the gate at just short of a run up the mountain. After about an hour and a half or so we reached the top of the Palmer ski lift, where we had some hot coffee and hoped the white out we just pushed into would clear. As the clouds lifted, Dave and I pushed on to a much more mellow Mt. Hood. We roped up at around 9500ft just before the Hogsback. As we crossed the Hogsback we noticed that the Bergshrund that hadn’t been there the last time, had begin to show a crack. Dave and I quickly hopped the Shrund and continued through a 30ft. section of ice with a lot of run out. Once we passed the ice it was a quick jaunt to the summit at around 8:30am in amazing conditions. We took a few photos with my phone of us on top and quickly came down the mountain.
We passed a few folks on their way up awfully late and chatted with them about conditions and the objective hazards. We then took off our crampons and began to glissade our way down the hill. We even had one run of nearly 1000ft.! Although the run managed to once again tear my pants but not were my mom had just fixed them(Thanks mom). Once we hit the parking lot we quickly changed and headed to the local diner for some eggs and omelette’s.
I spent the next days doing some tourist stuff around Portland. I saw an amazing waterfall and had some awesome local cuisine. All in all Portland was amazing and I’d like to thank Dave Newton and Bailey Apple for being such gracious hosts. Dave will be coming to Mass next month and you might even see him at the local crags with us. Well gang, I’ve got a lot of really dirty gear to wash so Ta-Ta for now.

Climbing the lower flanks of Mt. Hood

Jamie hanging out at camp.

Jamie looking at the Devil's Kitchen Headwall

We climbed Mt. Washington on Friday and Saturday this past weekend. I guided with Jamie on Friday and Brett and Jamie went for it on Saturday. Since I wasn’t there on Saturday I cant really give any details, but Friday was an awesome day on the mountain! Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so I’m relying on the climbers to share their photos with me. Friday was the first time this season I climbed the Tuckerman Ravine trail in only a techwick shirt. The thermal was much too hot. The temperature at the base by 8AM was what seemed to be 45 or 50 degrees. We climbed the Lions Head Summer Route which meant we had to cross the notorious avalanche path, but there wasn’t quite enough snow to release. We crossed it one at a time and quickly to be safe. Thanks to the newly fallen 24″ of snow, the rocks were once again covered, which made for much better footing than the previous week. We hit Lions Head by 12PM. The traverse across the summit cone was really soft and whoever broke trail after the new snow, sent the trail about 100 ft low of the normal trail, so we broke some new trail to try to get it back on target. The summit was amazing with 360 degree views. For the first time since January, I got to see the northern presidentials and all of the southern presidentials too. There was a pretty consistent 30mph breeze blowing which chilled you while standing still, but with a wind breaker on, it was quite warm. We spent an hour on the summit and headed down. The descent was hindered by some painful knees, but nonetheless we descended without incident for a 10 hour round trip summit day! Friday was probably the best weather I have had since the start of the season. Send me pictures so I can post them!

The Southern Presidentials from Mt. Washington

A great shot from the top of New England

Hanging out on the summit!

Epic!

Saturday was even better weather than Friday but I’ll try to get Brett to blog about that.

We climbed rocks today with Jokee and Steph from Boston. It was an awesome day for it. The may flies are pretty terrible in the morning, but they went away as things heated up. We got a number of climbs in. They were a little weary of the whole rock climbing thing to start, but they completed routes that they never thought they could. What a great day to be outdoors and it makes it sweeter that we were climbing.

Jokee on "Pine Tree" 5.4 at Crow Hill.

Steph on "Pine Tree" 5.4 at Crow Hill

Jamie assisting Jokee with lowering a climber

Steph high on "Boardwalk" 5.5 at Crow Hill

On Friday April 6th, Jamie, Brett, and Myself climbed Pinnacle Gully in Huntington Ravine. We got an early start at 7:30AM and started the approach up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. The trail was bare of snow for the first 20 minutes, and then it switched to very hard-packed snow and ice. Being too stubborn to put on crampons, we slipped and slided our way to the Huntington Ravine Fire Road, which was much easier going. We reached the start of the route around 10AM. Jamie led the first and second pitches, and I led the third pitch. Brett led the last little bit out of the gully. The weather was fantastic and it felt great to step into the sunlight after climbing in the shade for a few hours. All in all, a great day in Huntington Ravine! We are super happy to have been able to get another ice climb in this year.

The next day, we brought 5 climbers up Mt. Washington. We had another fairly nice day on the mountain. The day started out clear and warm and stayed that way until we reached the summit cone. We had a really fit group and were able to move quickly, reaching Lions Head by 11:30AM. The Lions Head Winter Route has been closed for a few weeks now, so we climbed the summer route, which was well packed but involved a lot of rock with crampons on. The summit cone was shrouded in clouds but visibility remained good and we pushed on to the summit. We spent about 35 minutes on top where we saw 5 kids in jeans and sneakers who had hiked up the cog. Despite things being warmer than mid-winter, it is far from being sneaker weather. They were definitely cutting their safety margin thin by being so ill-prepared. I expected the descent to be slow and tedious due to all of the exposed rock with crampons, but the group took it in stride and we descended rapidly, never taking our crampons off until the snow ran out on the Tuckerman Ravine Trail. We had a great day on the hill with a great bunch of climbers. We hope to see them on another climb soon!

Another awesome weekend on the mountain!

Corey following the second pitch on Pinnacle Gully

Leading Pinnacle's third pitch

The Alpine Garden Trail on a picture perfect day.

Jamie possibly performing a Tai Chi movement

The gang on top of Mt. Washington!!