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 […]
The notice given was very short, and we were thinking that as much as we would like to lead the full day hiking trip in question, we might not be able to put it together in time. That is what we were thinking until, that is, Redline Guide Ken Hodges stepped up to lead the way. The mission, after all, was a very important one. Our […]
We have standardized educational offerings, programs complete with certification (from us), but sometimes someone will come to us looking for a truly custom program — something like our multi-day Advanced Alpine Skills program, but shorter and less structured. This sort of thing usually ends up looking like a hybrid of all we do. And creating this one-off blended, custom offering is what Redline Guide Pat Ferland […]
Taking on Mt Washington via Right Gully in Tuckerman Ravine As explained in the last post, the “other day two” was led by Redline Guide Will Murphy and, as we hinted, was done right. Meaning Will led our guest up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail to Tuckerman Ravine where they ascended to Lion Head Trail via Right Gully, then re-connected with Tuckerman Ravine Trail and made for […]
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 […]
