The temperatures were mild for February, which means it was warmer than it should be. Which also means the suffering was held to a minimum. And that part’s good — our students were comfortable during their basic mountaineering skills and introduction to ice climbing classes. These were led with Redline Guides Mike Cherim and Mike Maciel taking on the mountaineering skills, while Redline Guide Pat Ferland […]
The other night the coldest wind chill temperature ever recorded on Earth was recorded on Mt Washington. Go figure, that crazy mountain weather. The ambient temperatures had dipped waaay down — as far as -47 degrees Fahrenheit. It was dangerously cold, in fact. Even the Valley was frozen and shuttered for the most part. But it was that gosh darn wind that made everything so insane […]
A returning guest came to us with the goal of gaining more confidence in winter backpacking, hoping to hike Stratton Peak in the Green Mountains of Vermont, and enjoy a winter overnight at Stratton Pond. On lead for this two day, one night backpack was Redline Guide Arlette Laan. Being that Arlette’s a creative soul like us, she opted to author the following summary: Day ZERO: […]
A guest recently came to us with a request that fell outside of the set educational programs we offer. For us this is no problem, though, as we are custom outfitters who default to the one-on-one experience. So, when someone wants something very similar to our Hiking Intro course but one not starting at the ground floor, so to speak, and to further have the lesson […]
Friday was a training day for one of our guests. He would be attempting to hike the 6288′ Mt Washington two days later. This would be done in the shadow of yet another group we had heading up at the same time. This training, and the following tour, was led by Redline Guide Phoebe Seltzer. The day in-between Phoebe couldn’t guide because she was busy winning […]
Our two-day mountaineering program has always been popular. There you train a day, then climb a day taking on the exquisitely-beautiful yet notoriously badass Mt Washington. Sometimes you reach the 6288′ summit, other times you don’t. And other times still you just don’t dare — nor do you care. The weather, you see, is often the destination. Climbers will stand atop Lion Head — an extremely […]
A large hiking group based out of Rhode Island signed up to learn some basic mountaineering skills with us. And it almost happened exactly as scheduled. But then the weather that we needed wasn’t the weather we had as we were nearing the time of our December class. The idea of a postponement was floated, but it was still wait-and-see. A good call since you know […]
Having stopgaps like turnaround times in place is a common-sense matter of safety. A turnaround time means one plans ahead to turnaround if not at the summit or other designated point by a particular time. If there was a misjudgment to the travel time — which can be due to a number of factors such as a lack of fitness, navigational challenges, difficult ground conditions, and […]
A day of winter training plus mountaineering skills training and a guided experience on a winter Mt Washington goes a long way toward filling one’s experience bank. It’s akin to making a huge experiential deposit, perhaps bolstering a little-used account, or for some making a significant opening deposit. Going in inexperienced, coming out wiser, stronger, better than before. That’s what a few hiking buddies did. We […]
Everyone who hikes the 3384′ Mt Tremont takes note of the mountain’s steep upper reaches and the numerous switchbacks that allegedly ease the effort required to climb said reaches. “Those switchbacks,” they exclaim, “sure are something else.” (They actually mutter something different, but you get the idea.) So, if you’re one of the folks out there taking on the 52 With a View list because it’s […]
We usually try to post something re-capping our individual adventures, and now and then we even try to offer a write-up covering some of our educational offerings. Other times, though, we blink our eyes for a split second and find ourselves over our heads with things to cover. That’s when we break out the old combiner and combine them things. And that’s what we’re doing here, […]
Self-proclaimed “slow and steady hikers,” they were, but not that slow. They were that steady, however. Not just in terms of moving at a steady pace and being steady on their feet, but steady in their transitions and operations. As in the slow is smooth kind of steady. And you know what that means, right? If you haven’t already heard, smooth is fast. What they may […]
