Safe climbable ice is getting tougher to find. In fact, for us, this trip is probably about it unless someone wants to seek it out in the ravines, but even that is going to become sketchy for the most part. The power of ice is impressive, but the longer, warmer days of spring will destroy it with certainty. Redline Guide Gregg Ludvigson, after scouting, decided to visit Fireman’s Crag in Franconia Notch where the plan was to ice climb taking several lines. This wasn’t an intro course, but our guest did pick up a lot of valuable info. Now for Gregg’s summary and photos.
With the weather forecast calling for rain in the in the valley, we made the decision to ice climb in Franconia Notch, since the forecast there was calling for light snow showers, becoming cloudy. Upon arriving at the parking lot, we encountered mid-winter conditions. It was snowing heavily, with the wind blowing very strong. We geared up in the parking lot and made our way up to the base of the ice. The left side and the right side of the ice flow wasn’t bad, but I determined that the left side had a lower angle, better protected from any possible falling ice, and was probably a good place to start. The middle of the ice flow was mostly gone, and falling apart with a lot of water running down. Our guest hadn’t done a ton of ice climbing and was trying to learn more about it while preparing himself for some mountaineering adventures.
After spending some time working on ice climbing technique, it was time to do some actual climbing. Today wasn’t all about getting to the top of the climb as much as it was getting comfortable with climbing itself. The guest did a great job, and improved considerably from the start of the day until the end of the day. With the weather we have had recently, we never expected that we would end the day being a little cold. We look forward to having our guest back again next ice climbing season. Hopefully the next time he returns we will have ice more suitable to topping out. —Gregg
