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Hipster Keys
So my brother and I went to the adirondacks in NY to climb the Trap Dike route on Mt colden..weve attempted it twice before but got sent back from crappy ice the first time, and an inexperienced partner the 2nd time. but as they say...third times a charm
we drove up to the adirondack loj friday night and set out on the trailhead about 10 pm. ended up bivying next to an occupied leanto at marcy dam.
saturday morning we got an early start and were on the trail up to avalanche pass by 6 am. it was a bit cloudy at first but blue started peeking out through the cloud cover by the time we reached the pass.
when we got to the dike, wow was it different from last year. irene really cleaned it out..alot less vegetaion.
the ice was in good shape, solid all the way through, though at the top of pitch 1 i could hear some water running underneath. I led the first 2 pitches quickly because a team of 4, who arrived there minutes before we did let us slip by, so i didnt want to hold them up any more than i had to.
when we got to the third pitch we found a rope that was partially frozen into the ice..it was kind of eerie. My brother took this one up and i shortly followed. FINALLY this is now the furthest weve gotten on the route. a little celebration for us at that point...and then it was time to continue upwards.
the cloudcover was high up so we had great views of all of the surrounding mountains, and algonquin was continuously getting bathed in sunlight..it made for some awesome pictures.
we kept trudging up over lots of low angle ice, and finally made it to the dike exit. the snow made for good kick steps, and we moved at a nice consistent pace. as we were climbing up we both were reflecting to eachother how this was probably the best day weve had up here in a while...pure smiles the whole way up the slide.
at one point we were heading up the climbers right side of the slide, in some knee deep snow. My brother was kicking the steps and i was a few paces behind him. behind me was a team of 3 climbers as well. as we were heading up I heard two distinct WUMPH sounds off to my left in the snowpack. I stopped everyone there and told them what i heard. we looked around and saw the the climbers left side of the slide was much more windblown and stable looking, so we traversed one at a time over and continued on up. My brother and I had just completed an AIARE level one course last month at mt washington, so i was trying to keep my ears and eyes open for warning signs. Who knows if that wind slab that we were on would have let go or not..but i didnt want to find out. better safe than sorry.
so the rest of the climb was pretty uneventful, but we all summited to soem great views of marcy and gothics and the surrounding mountains. awesome weekend to be up there!
we drove up to the adirondack loj friday night and set out on the trailhead about 10 pm. ended up bivying next to an occupied leanto at marcy dam.
saturday morning we got an early start and were on the trail up to avalanche pass by 6 am. it was a bit cloudy at first but blue started peeking out through the cloud cover by the time we reached the pass.
when we got to the dike, wow was it different from last year. irene really cleaned it out..alot less vegetaion.
the ice was in good shape, solid all the way through, though at the top of pitch 1 i could hear some water running underneath. I led the first 2 pitches quickly because a team of 4, who arrived there minutes before we did let us slip by, so i didnt want to hold them up any more than i had to.
when we got to the third pitch we found a rope that was partially frozen into the ice..it was kind of eerie. My brother took this one up and i shortly followed. FINALLY this is now the furthest weve gotten on the route. a little celebration for us at that point...and then it was time to continue upwards.
the cloudcover was high up so we had great views of all of the surrounding mountains, and algonquin was continuously getting bathed in sunlight..it made for some awesome pictures.
we kept trudging up over lots of low angle ice, and finally made it to the dike exit. the snow made for good kick steps, and we moved at a nice consistent pace. as we were climbing up we both were reflecting to eachother how this was probably the best day weve had up here in a while...pure smiles the whole way up the slide.
at one point we were heading up the climbers right side of the slide, in some knee deep snow. My brother was kicking the steps and i was a few paces behind him. behind me was a team of 3 climbers as well. as we were heading up I heard two distinct WUMPH sounds off to my left in the snowpack. I stopped everyone there and told them what i heard. we looked around and saw the the climbers left side of the slide was much more windblown and stable looking, so we traversed one at a time over and continued on up. My brother and I had just completed an AIARE level one course last month at mt washington, so i was trying to keep my ears and eyes open for warning signs. Who knows if that wind slab that we were on would have let go or not..but i didnt want to find out. better safe than sorry.
so the rest of the climb was pretty uneventful, but we all summited to soem great views of marcy and gothics and the surrounding mountains. awesome weekend to be up there!