A person came to us hoping to do an overnight in the alpine as part of her prep for climbing Denali later this year. Training like this is fairly common for those taking on the world’s tallest mountains. Here in NH, especially on the Presidential Range, we have the terrain (excluding glaciers) and the mean mountain weather to provide a real world simulation without having to […]
We had Redline Guide Chase Hall out there leading on the Ammonoosuc Ravine Trail and Crawford Path on Mt Washington. With him was a single guest. The majority of the hikes Chase leads are for one fellow we’ve taken to calling “Grid Getting Guest” (as a part of our privacy policy we don’t divulge names). On this most recent hike, our guest had the same first […]
Some say skiing in Tuckerman Ravine is a rite of passage. A stop on the journey from beginner to backcountry expert. So much so that people come from all over to try their hand at it. Some might immediately think that this is nuts, but the beauty of Ravine skiing is that one can stop at any point, slap on the sticks, and go. In this […]
This tale began with the purchase of a gift certificate, from husband to wife. She was very experienced, but he felt this could open the door to new things, new training, new experiences. Particularly in the realm of mountaineering. Day one of this two-day outing would begin with some mountaineering skills training. Day two, instead of a more normal plan to climb Mt Washington, featured the […]
Our guest reached out to us in preparation for a trip to the Scottish Highlands. He’s new to hiking and knew there was a lot more he wanted to learn. We spent the morning in the classroom covering the fundamentals, then headed out in the afternoon to hike Peaked Mountain and put everything into practice on trail. Leading this trip was Redline Guide Rhonda Willette. She […]
Our oft-returning Grid-Getting Guest was back for the Hancocks for the month of March. As his normal guide was unavailable, Redline Guide Eric Hansen took the lead on this one. We figured the trails would be a horrible mess with the warm weather negatively affecting the trails, but as it turned out, they weren’t bad. As Eric put it: Trail reports insisted the conditions would be […]
A returning guest came to us looking to broaden his horizons from the hiking/mountaineering world to joining the backcountry ski crowd. As a fairly new skier spending a couple of days out there with professional oversight will benefit him in both the front- and backcountry. Leading these trips were Redline Guides Will Murphy and Dominic Torro. Check out the following day one photos from Will. Great […]
Most of the time we will write posts about single events: a hike, a climb, a backpack, etc. But on some weekends there is just so much going on it’s a bit overwhelming (not complaining) to try and piece it out like that. Sometimes we have to blend the ingredients and make some sort of mountain adventures smoothie, so to speak. Inasmuch this post will be […]
Leading another backcountry ski tour, Redline Guide Dominic Torro, reached out after the tour in the Gulf of Slides telling us about the adventure and how they crushed it out there, adding specific information about the Fingers, the avalanche conditions, and how they stayed safe. He did this by voice memo, obviously stoked about the day. Our guests come with varying levels of skill and experience. […]
Due to scheduling, weather, and other considerations, we ended up leading our guest up Central Gully in Huntington Ravine in the dark. Redline Guide Debra McCown reported that they got on trail at 3:45AM, topped out of the ravine by 10AM, and made it back to the trailhead by 1PM. If these numbers make it seem like it took a long time, it did, but we […]
A new guest wanted to try his hand at some New Hampshire ice climbing so he signed up for a one day Intro to Ice Climbing course with us. We decided to put Redline Guide Glenn Van Neil on it. Glenn took him to Frankenstein Cliff in Crawford Notch to climb the Standard Route of Lost in the Forest. There our guest was able learn things […]
The weather on Mt Washington can stop us from summiting. The ground conditions can stop us from summiting. A lack of conditioning or self-confidence can also stop us from summiting. And sometimes it is a combination of these things that can halt our progress. So what do we do? Well, we are sometimes hired to lead a do-over. As the well-known expression informs us: “The mountain […]
