Franconia Ridge, that is, and assigned with hiking it was Redline Guide Ryan Mcguire. His goal was to lead one young lady from Massachusetts around the classic loop — bagging four mountains, two of which count as 4000-footers — going up Falling Waters trail to Little Haystack (elv. 4760′), across the ridge hitting Lincoln (elv. 5089′), North Lincoln (a.k.a. Truman, elv. 5020′), then finally Mt Lafayette […]
“First Class” is used in two ways in the title of this post. First it means that quite literally this was the first class held at our new location. The second way we mean it is in that the members of the New Hampshire Women’s Hiking Group — the “Purple Army” who served as our students, were a first class group. We rarely post about our […]
Both sides of Mt Washington had Redline Guides doing their thing. On the west side was Jeffrey Shutak who was leading two fellows from Connecticut on a hiking tour with Rachel Ryan shadowing. On the east side Ryan Mcguire was leading two fellows from Massachusetts on a backcountry (AT) ski tour, earning their turns and testing their mettle in Tuckerman Ravine. The west side team hiked […]
A long-returning guest of Mike’s who had climbed with him on Mt Washington on two prior occasions had come back for more. But this time was going to be different. On previous trips, he said, he always had an agenda, some hard rules and objectives. This time he wanted to simply relax. Not to embrace lethargy over the course, not by a long shot, but to […]
Simply put, that’s what these two returning guests were after, are after, and asked for it by name. There’s more in store for them, still. We’ll be chasing the snow up the flanks of Mt Washington near the end of May, in fact, with some late season Mountaineering Skills training plans in the works. For now, though, the goal of the day was to attempt Mt […]
There is a lesson to be learned. Accomplishment leads to confidence, and that leads to greater comfort, and from there complacency is a close neighbor. It’s a neighbor we can stumble onto quite easily if we’re not careful. We want to respect this neighbor and give complacency a wide berth. To remain aware of ourselves and the fragility of human life. The story below was penned […]
She came to us from Connecticut with a goal of preparation and training for Denali in mind. Or re-training may be more apt since mountaineering wasn’t at all new to her. It had just been a while. In fact, as we learned, in spirit and attitude, she was already ready. She just needed to get used to wearing snowshoes while wearing a huge pack and refresh […]
We’ll call him John because, well, that’s his name. John is a Class 1 or All-Season Trip Leader for the Appalachian Mountain Club’s (AMC) distinguished New Hampshire Chapter. It’s a hard-earned and respected position, to be sure. John is also a “Gridder” — meaning he is hiking all of the 4000-footers of NH in every month of the year (48×12=576) — so, at being nearly 500 […]
No mistake was made in the ordering of this post’s title. They came, they conquered, then they saw. It’s not the prescribed order we’re all used to, but we’re talking about an April ascent of Mt Washington. Home to the world’s worst weather. Top dog of the region’s mountains, even at a squat 6288′ (1917m), but it does whatever the heck it wants. This is the […]
What a difference a day makes on the notorious 6288′ Mt Washington. Why just the other day one of our teams was stopped short of their goal due to high winds, wind loaded snow, and higher than acceptable avalanche conditions. Turn the clocks ahead 24 hours, though, and the same ravine, now sun kissed, is significantly less dangerous, with acceptable ground conditions for backcountry alpine touring, […]
While one of our mountaineering skills classes was happening in the sheltered valley, up on the windy mountain Redline Guide Ryan Mcguire was delivery the goods to two gentlemen from Connecticut looking for a backcountry ski adventure. Specifically they wanted to ski Tuckerman Ravine. That didn’t happen. They went to the ravine, as far as they could safely go, but excessive avalanche dangers precluded venturing further […]
We write these blog posts for the benefit of anyone interested, sure, but it’s mostly for our guests — and of which some parts will only have meaning to them. We think of them as keepsakes for what are hopefully terrific times. Though in this case, maybe we should write terrifying times. Maybe a little bit of both sums it up best for this tour. This […]
