Around here hearing someone mention “skills and Mt Washington” is not uncommon. It’s a term you often hear in the Mt Washington Valley, at least in the guide community. It refers to a commonly-offered training-followed-by-summit-attempt model. The training being winter/mountaineering skills, and the summit attempt being on the notorious-although-only-6288′ Mt Washington, complete with its psycho weather. It wasn’t like that on this tour led by Redline […]
Several years ago Redline Guide Mike Cherim was in training mode, preparing for a new career as a mountain guide. He utilized several avenues in his education and approach. One avenue led him through the AMC NH Chapter’s Trip Leader program. With this Chapter Mike took several classes, then later helped teach at Cardigan Lodge. He eventually became an AMC Class 1 Leader — meaning he […]
How do buddies become good buddies? They train for it. That’s what happened on this day: we offered some training — a Hiking Intro (Winter Version) — for the Hiking Buddies NH 48 group on Facebook. On duty for this awesome and well-received event were Redline Guides Mike Cherim, Mike Maciel, and Brian Wasiewski. To the guides and students alike, great job one and all. Here […]
The original plan was to go snowshoeing with two guests from Massachusetts and to arrive at a nice location like a mountain summit, for example, in time to view the 4:17PM sunset. In the lead for this assignment was Redline Guide Tim Jones. With Tim — known by the team for his extensive planning and preparation — we tossed around several solid ideas. At least they […]
We’d love to tell you climate change has slowed significantly, that U.S. political parties are uniting for common causes, vowing for once to serve the people who voted them into their respective offices, that Covid is a fading memory, and we produced at least two stellar articles every month. Sadly, though, none of this is true as of the time of this writing. And as much […]
The holidays approach quietly, sneaking up on us, then pouncing. A few months ago we were noting the too-early holiday lights and decorations intermingled with Halloween stuff. This was followed up by the let’s-shatter-our-diet season. Next thing you know torn wrapping paper is littering the floor, pajamas-wearing rug rats snubbing their new socks and underwear, and, bam, the new year is upon us. Back at headquarters […]
We received reports from both our oft-returning guest and Redline Guide Phoebe Seltzer, allowing us to compare and choose some highlights. We helped select the objective. The suggestion partly based on what our guest — done with her 48 4000-Footers and now working on her 52 With A View — “needed” (though it wasn’t the only thing). The suggestion was also ideal in that the length […]
Twenty eight of those 48 4000-footers, done, adding two more with this trip bringing our many-time returning guest to 29 and 30. But first they had to get it done. The plan for this trip led by Redline Guide Mike Maciel was to hike a classic out-and-back in the interest of safety by avoiding the treacherous Flume Slide Trail. This is accomplished by hiking up Liberty […]
Just over a month ago a returning guest came to us wanting to have Redline Guide Mike Maciel show her how to manage oneself in some “spicy” terrain. Mike chose a King Ravine, Chemin Des’Dames, Airline Loop and they ended up having a great day. Having lived to tell her tale, she came back to us, this time looking for some icy early season training — […]
Teaching Wilderness Navigation is challenging because learning it is a challenge. Furthermore, once it is learned, it is easily forgotten. After our classes we provide homework whose main purpose is to help our students identify their own weaknesses and to gain a greater retention of the material. We even offer resources and lend our personal support to the cause. We don’t want our students to forget […]
We had a guest contact us looking to do a backpack or two in hopes of preparing himself for an Appalachian Trail (AT) thru-hike starting in late January/February. He had been chatting with Redline Guide Arlette Laan so it was a natural thing to have her lead him. Also, not many folks are qualified to really help, not to the level Arlette is, anyway, what with […]
We could say it’s all about… Finding North It’s 8:09AM, class. Let’s head over to the bar at Stonehurst Manor for one of their powerful espresso martinis. What? No, you say, it’s too early to drink? They’re not even open at this time? Are you going to let time control your life?! Those numbers, they seem to have a lot of meaning to you, don’t they? […]
