Willey's Slide Report

On Wednesday, I went up to New Hampshire to do the Willey's Slide ice climb with Daddy. We left Westborough around 9, so by the time we were ready to start walking in it must have been around 1. On the way up, the car went over 250,000 miles. Once we actually got to the parking lot, it was pretty muddy (since it was a warm day -- the high must have been near 50), which made packing the gear difficult. It also took a while to figure out exactly which gear we would use.

We had about four harnesses with us, and only two had adjustable leg loops (which we wanted). One was normal, one was a Mammut "sitzgurt" harness from the early 90s that had an interesting buckle system. I thought I was a harness expert, but I couldn't figure it out. Subsequent online research shows that it was probably a "click buckle", but I couldn't make it feel very secure, and I also couldn't make it stay tight (even that picture doesn't really explain exactly how it should work). Daddy said that when he used the harness it would just spontaneously fall off. So I ended up just using a nonadjustable leg loop harness that kind of squeezed, but wasn't too bad.

Daddy also had to adjust my crampons to fit back on my boots.



Once we figured all that out, we started hiking in. My pack felt REALLY heavy (but Daddy had all the gear and the rope). We did it without crampons, and there were sections that were kind of icy/tricky, but it wasn't too bad. We made it to the railroad tracks about 2/3rds of the way up, and took photos ... and I made a panorama photo:





Then we made it up to the base, and started getting ready. There was one other party one the right hand side of the climb, but we were going up the more central/left hand section, so that wasn't really a problem. The first pitch, which was still in the sun, was pretty snowy and went pretty quickly, but the ice was also super slushy and so a little insecure. Daddy said there was really hard ice a few inches below the slushy stuff, but my tools never got down that far.



The second pitch was more of the same, but was a bit more icy and less snowy than the first pitch. The slush made Daddy, who was leading, nervous, and he put in three ice screws (which are a challenge fore me to get out).

By the time we started the third pitch, though, the sun had gone behind the ridge, and we were in the shade (it still wasn't that cold at the belays, though). The ice got a lot harder and more brittle, and Daddy led the crux "bulge" pitch -- but I don't think it was as tricky for him as the second pitch. I followed it without too many issues.



The fourth and final pitch was a full rope length, but not too bad. I did get some ice sort of kicked down on me by both Daddy and the other party, who were slightly ahead of us and moving to their left (the whole thing narrows at the top so we were converging), but nothing too major. I finished that one too, but on the easier sections where I was standing upright, I kept running out of breath. (In the end, I ended up crawling up quite a lot of the climb.)



So that was the end of the climb itself! We ate some M&Ms and I took pictures of the climb, and tried to do another panorama (it didn't come out that wide):





Then it was time for the actual descent, which was the hard part. The descent was a trail in the woods that ran parallel to the climb, and was pretty much at the same angle as the climb ... but you go down it unroped. It was pretty snowy, with only a few icy sections, but it was still very tough for me. So I ended up downclimbing a lot of it. Like, facing in. It took a while. But we still made it down to the packs marginally faster than we made it up. From there, the rest of the descent route (that we had already hiked up on the way in) wasn't too bad -- much less steep, and still easier, even though I was wearing a pack for this part. I strayed from the trail a few times because it was so packed down, and I was tired, which wasn't very LNT of me.

Then we went to North Conway for Daddy to pick up some stuff for his crampons he had ordered at IME. On his way out of the store, multiple old people started yelling at him -- two people he knew (Henry Barber and Alan, a guide) had seen him, and both were trying to say hi at the same time. So Daddy was befuddled.

Then we had dinner at some "brew pub" that Daddy likes to go to. I really liked my dinner: It was chicken, with some sort of teriyaki sauce, and bacon, and mango-pineapple salsa on a bulky roll. It was really good. Especially the mango-pineapple salsa. The waitress that brought us our food was a different one than who took our order, and tried to guess which one of us had which meal, and tried to give me the dainty little wrap that Daddy ordered. Wrong!

Then we had to drive to Westborough. Daddy got a phone message from Harry asking if he wanted to go to MR tonight (Harry didn't know Daddy was in NH), and Daddy did mention that we could get to MR in time for the last hour, but that wasn't happening. So we drove all the way back to Westborough.

So the day was good, I guess, but it was too much work carrying stuff up, and getting myself up the climb, and then getting myself down the climb.