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wideguy
Nov 5, 2007, 5:13 PM
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Sweet Rob! Maybe if I can get my shiat sorted out you can show me the way up.
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epoch
Moderator
Nov 5, 2007, 5:20 PM
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Ditto that!
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microbarn
Nov 5, 2007, 5:32 PM
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awesome TR again Rob. I am jealous that you are getting out so much. Glad to hear it.
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euphoriagtrst
Nov 6, 2007, 12:16 AM
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Hey, keep these stories coming! I just started rope-soloing this past summer and it's cool to hear about other people's soloing experiences.
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desertwanderer81
Nov 6, 2007, 4:07 PM
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wow...that beer looks really really good.....
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robbovius
Nov 6, 2007, 5:55 PM
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desertwanderer81 wrote: wow...that beer looks really really good.....
it was. I forget the name, but it was a local brewery product, I think specific to the restaurant I was at. substantial, not too bitter.
euphoriag, I'll do my part, though the rock season here is coming to a close on the way to ice. I dunno if i'll be able to get up north for another rope solo adventure much before next spring. PM me if you wanna compare rope-solo sytems and notes. I've learned a good deal from some of the old timers on rc.com who participate in the rope solo ethic.
Wide, Epo, next spring dudes, or next summer, let's make plans. its good climbing. I actually wanna summit mt webster from that climb, not just the route itself. there's more rock above, through the upper tree band. wanna get my alpine on.
(This post was edited by robbovius on Nov 6, 2007, 5:59 PM)
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desertwanderer81
Nov 6, 2007, 6:04 PM
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now I'm really thirsty :p
I'm going to have to get myself a few pints of Fat Tire tonight :D
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charley
Nov 6, 2007, 9:34 PM
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Nice tr Robb. Tell me how do you drink beer with sugary desserts?
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robbovius
Nov 7, 2007, 5:57 PM
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charley wrote: Nice tr Robb. Tell me how do you drink beer with sugary desserts?
I wolfed the food, and then after a couple chugs of the beer, it was ALLLLLLL good ;-)
Moose, happy Bday! Enjoy!!!
(This post was edited by robbovius on Nov 7, 2007, 5:58 PM)
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charley
Nov 7, 2007, 7:37 PM
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Maybe we should get together some year for a birthday climb. Mine is 10/25 close enough to you early nov. guys.
Robb,I'm having honey brown beer and chocolate covered pretzels.
(This post was edited by charley on Nov 7, 2007, 7:39 PM)
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robbovius
Nov 7, 2007, 7:44 PM
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charley wrote: Maybe we should get together some year for a birthday climb. Mine is 10/25 close enough to you early nov. guys. Robb,I'm having honey brown beer and chocolate covered pretzels.
sounds like a good idea to me...both ideas actually ;-)
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healyje
Jul 24, 2008, 6:35 AM
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Somehow I failed to comment on this thread when I first saw it after you posted it. Not sure what happened there as I thought I had. In any case I wanted to say good on you for getting out there and up stuff...!
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robbovius
Sep 2, 2008, 2:38 PM
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Hey, what the fuck happened to the entire first page of my trip report? pictures, text, all gone? what the fuck?
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macherry
Sep 2, 2008, 3:03 PM
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i don't know robb, but i'll look into it
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robbovius
Sep 2, 2008, 3:43 PM
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MA, I PMed Epoch about it as well.
(This post was edited by robbovius on Sep 2, 2008, 3:44 PM)
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charley
Sep 2, 2008, 5:33 PM
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It may have been taken to mp. 
I know it's not funny to you, but you might as well laugh.
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robbovius
Sep 2, 2008, 6:07 PM
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whats mp?
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charley
Sep 2, 2008, 8:06 PM
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mountain project
Wasn't that where someone was messing with your idenity.
Maybe it was summitpost.
(This post was edited by charley on Sep 2, 2008, 8:15 PM)
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robbovius
Sep 2, 2008, 8:48 PM
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yeah I figured it out about 2 minutes after posting that.
and guess what, bristolpipe has caught up with me I guess. go check out that "looking for a partner" thread he started last march or whenever...
man, that is one fucked-up obsessive dude right there, no lie.
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wonderwoman
Sep 2, 2008, 9:00 PM
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Maybe you should just reply to his posts with better and better trip reports. Just ignore his comments, like a make believe killfile. He would hate to be ignored!
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robbovius
Sep 3, 2008, 10:32 AM
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I'm still trying to find out why the first page of this TR got deleted.
Mods, WTF? DDT, WTF?
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epoch
Moderator
Sep 3, 2008, 10:53 AM
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We're working the issue on our end Rob.
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robbovius
Sep 3, 2008, 11:03 AM
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thanks man.
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robbovius
Sep 9, 2008, 11:25 AM
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well, luckily, I found the original text of the story. Reposting in 1-2-3...
Robbovius, somewhere between Lost in the Sun and A Bit Short– Crawford Notch, NH (Originally posted in november '07, mysteriously deleted sometime between 7/08 and 9/08),
After my trip to Franconia Notch and Artist’s Bluff last August, fellow MASS CLIMBER, Larry Hamilton, had posted a picture of a new route on the Central Gulley Slab of Mt. Webster, in Crawford Notch, put up by Chuck Woodman and Jack Dorsey.
Described as an “adventure climb” I thought it looked like a whole lotta fun, and so decided that it might make a nice climbing destination for my birthday weekend (11/3) , which happened to fall on a Saturday this year.
As the weekend approached, I watched the weather sort-of-nervously, and anyone who had read either the Rockclimbing.com Mass Climbers Thread, or the trad climbing forum on NEclimbs.com, was witness to the drama I went thru going back and forth about whether I was going to do the climb or not due to a sketchy weather prediction. Ultimately, healthy encouragement by some folks on NEclimbs turned the tide and I decided to drive up Friday morning early, and do it.
Friday morning dawned sunny and cloudless, and the drive was uneventful. I arrived at the Willey Slide parking pullout on rte 302 about 9:30 am, parking behind two cars already there (Climbing aquaintance Amy and her partner who were also climbing the Central Gulley Slabs that day). I took a little wile getting things together, shouldered my main trad pack (with rope & trad gear, and extra layers) on my back, and then my secondary pack (with second rope, water and lunch) carried frontside on my chest, began the trek uphill to the slabs at about 10:00 am..
The NEclimbs RDB entry lists the approach hike as 30-45 minutes, but I found this to be, for me, anyway, an underestimation in time…by about 100%. ;-) carrying both packs (40+ lbs maybe?), I had to pace myself somewhat slowly since the trail, while relatively well marked with small orange ribbons and cairns, isn’t “developed”, in the way the the approach trails at Cathedral are – turning an ankle, especially on the final upper ¼ mile of rockslide rubble would be all too easy, so laden. Further, looking up at the Central Gulley slabs from the road, I knew I had at least a half to 2/3rds mile of uphill slogging to go, and wanted to have some energy left to climb.
As always, the forest provided a convenient downed branch as a hiking staff, and that helped me fording the Saco at a shallow and relatively narrow area right off a parking pullout on the northbound side of 302.
The hike - beyond being arduous, maybe grueling, even - was relatively uneventful, and the directions from the NEclimbs RDB were easy to follow, but this, my friends, is a serious approach. The lower part of the trail along the east side of the Saco, and even up into the woods before you get to the bottom of the rockslide isn’t terrifically difficult, but the rockslide itself is stout, with fallen leaves and moss on some rocks, and loose rocks underfoot in many places, which made the going slow and careful. That plan worked out well though, and at 11:26 I arrived uninjured at the bottom of the Central Gulley Slab, and set about getting ready to go…but not before I turned around and was rewarded by this view across the Notch:
View from the start ledge, looking across at the Willey Slide. I’m already 500 feet up! Maybe.
I could see a climber above at about the p2 belay and called up. It turned out to be an acquaintance named Amy (who’d been a possible trad partner for the trip but had hooked up separately for the day) we hollered back and forth a bit about conditions up above…cascades of running water were flowing down the line of “Lost in the Sun” …conditions were, in a word, wet. This did not deter me, sicne the middle of the slabs looked dry, and so I built a two point lower anchor in a couple cracks (with my #3 camalot and Blue Tricam) and set about gearing up, flaking my “A” rope into the pack from which I’d flow it out as I climbed, and then starting up the dry line.
Looking at the lead off picture, I now see that the line I climbed was to the right of the Lost in the Sun line, about in line with a v-shaped shadow halfway up the face (which I climbed through)
I climbed P1 in my hikers, which made for a couple sketch moments getting past water runs, and on a couple steeper sections, I placed about 3 pieces of gear, and clipped one bolt and subsequently found myself at the p1 belay…
The usual self-portrait...are you guys sick of these yet?
…where I found two new bolts with hangers and rings, making my life very easy anchor-wise.
I rapped to the base, cleaning on the rap (which I consider sort of rope-solo cheating, but is quicker than cleaning on the second ;-) ), broke down the base anchor, shouldered my second rope pack and began the reclimb, again in my hikers…and about halfway up, took my first rope-solo fall, slipping on some water, coming off the rock totally…said fall proving uneventful, the belay-device-which-shall-remain-nameless performing as, well not exactly advertised, since it’s not advertised for rope solo in any form, but certainly as expected, and I able to right myself cursing a good blue streak – using all my favorites! – about how wet my pants had gotten. Once back at the P1 belay (yeah, after the fall I hauled on the rope), I chose to don my climbing shoes for the next, steeper, pitch, quickly re-racked, reflaked the – now wet-spotted - rope into my ascent pack, and headed up P2.
Given that I wanted to try and get as many pitches as I could in before the sun went behind the opposing ridge, I was motivated to no fuck around so much at the belays as I am used to, and so didn’t spend so much time in recording the ascent photographically as I have in the past…I sort of regret that now, but…
P2 had a couple of the longest run-outs (sizzle!), and required a bit of careful smearing here and there…I assiduously avoided water streaks. Good climbing though, and I arrived that the P3 belay warmed up enough - thanks mostly to the beautiful, sunny, cloudless weather - that I shed my windbreaker after building a nice easy anchor on the pair of be-ringed hangers bolted there.
I’d like to take this moment to thank the guys who put up these routes. The anchor placements are great and the various bolts on the steeper featureless slabs are in good sequence and nice distance from one another…I’m not sure if it was P2 or 3, but I climbed a shorts section of steeper slab, maybe 5.6-5.7, that had nothin’, but there were three bolts, about 20 feet apart each, that made the section good, fun, exciting slab climbing.
Re-racked, re-flaked, and watered, I got on about the P3 ascent, which went the most quickly off all the pitches, simply because there was a single gear placement, and I think I saw a bolt. 70 feet of run-out…yeeeaaaaahhhhh…5.4 slabbing? I dunno, I just kept camel-walking my way up and got to the P3 belay without any other incident that my tingling scalp.
After rapping down and cleaning P3, and just before I began the re-climb, Amy and her partner rapped down to the P2 belay (they’d achieved the summit) and we chatted a short while, before I headed back up. While talking I mentioned the resolute burleyness of the approach…they both nodded, her partner ( whose name I can’t recall, sorry) adding something like, “yeah, I was thinking I should have been in better shape”. Folks, let me reiterate that the approach is substantial.
We parted ways, I going up and they heading down, Amy hollering up (after I’d gone about 60 feet) “want a picture?” , me replying in the positive and her snapping away as I struck a heroic pose…or stood there smiling I guess ;-)
P4 headed up what more featured rock, with a definite – but again, wet – crack that took several bomber placements (thru that shadowed inverted “V” in the route pic above). The climbing was easy enough that I put my hikers back on and just concentrated on my footwork to keep from slipping off. The run-outs werent’ so serious on this pitch and I arrived at the P4 belay happy, but starting to feel tired. Rapping down to clean and reclimb, I started considering time, and, when I got back to the P3 ledge, looking down, could see the shadow of the opposite ridge creeping up the central gulley face…the edge of the bright sun was just touching the top of the westward mountain. As I borke down the anchor, the shadow passed over me, and I felt it as a definite drop in temperature ( by this time, I was down to shirtsleeves, from the sunny day, and my exertions)
Knowing that I had the decent hike still to go, and sort of dreading it, honestly, I thought better of summiting that day, and decided to bail off and be happy with the 8 pitches (4 leads, and 4 seconds, the beauty of rope soloing, is that you get to climb everything twice) I’d accomplished.
I set about preparing my raps, but not before memorializing the day’s achievement in pictures:
self-portrait from P4, Willey House and rte 302 below
wistfully, looking upward at the pitches unclimbed…I’ll be back!
the Willey House, from the P4 ledge
over my shoulder, the Willey Slide
Overall impressions of the route:
I like this climb better than either of the two Whitehorse routes I’ve done, Standard, and Dike. The rock is interestingly featured than the WH slabs IMO, and has somewhat grippier texture. The views across Crawford Notch I found to be more captivating as well, compared to the view down Whitehorse to the hotel. I savored the aloneness, and the commitment of the approach only added to the event. If you’re looking for an easy approach, so you can do multiple lines on a crag during a day of climbing, go elsewhere. But, if you want an adventure, I recommend the central gulley slabs. This particular event has only whetted my appetite for more of the same.
I threaded my “A” rope, tied on the second rope with a healthy EDK, tore down the anchor, shouldered one pack and began my series of raps back to base. Curiously, my ropes got wetter on the raps, than they’d gotten on the ascents. After about an hour of rapping, pulling, rethreading, pulling, and cussing out tangled wet ropes, I was back at base, as the sun finally set.
Packing up was done by headlamp, and once everything was gathered up and packed away, I shouldered my main trad pack and “A” rope, and then extended the shoulder straps on my second rope pack as far as they would go, and shouldered that stacked atop the main pack. Oddly, it felt heavy. ;-/ then I began the process of slowly stepping down the rubble of the rockslide, using both hands and feet, a real step-by-step- inch-by-inch process, very aware of how easily I could either turn – or break – an ankle on the many loose stones and slippery leaves. I resigned myself to just going as slowly as safety demanded and not worrying about when I’d get back to the car, just knowing that eventually I’d get there…
Occasionally, cars passed by on 302, and as their headlights kept getting higher and higher, I measured my downward progress as the lights zoomed by, flickering thru the trees.
Lit only by headlamp, the trail down the rockslide was visible about 20-30 feet ahead, though into the trees to either side, I really couldn’t see very far and began to wonder if I’d be able to recongnize the turn into the woodsy section fothe trail, since I was only able to find cairns when I was almost right on top of them. I decided that if I couldn’t find the side trail, I’d just keep heading downward until I got to the Saco, and then head north along that. Turned out I didn’t need to, though, as after a bit more than an hour decending, I came upon the three cairns that mark the end of the rockslide part of the trail, and made the right turn into the woods, and was able to find more cairns as they appeared out of the darkness. Never was I so happy, well, maybe…anyway, I figure at that point the most dangerous part of the day – absolutely alone in the woods (did I mention that there’s ZERO cel reception in Crawford notch?) , heavily double-packed, tired, in the pitch dark of night down-scrambling a ¼ mile of rockslide rubble lit only by headlamp - was over, and relaxed a bit.
Even though the going got comparatively easier, by then my knees were aching and my ankles felt a bit rubbery, so I still took it kinda slow, though, again, I’d picked up a downed branch and was using that as a hiking staff…the forest ALWAYS provides ;-)
Finally I heard the rushing of the Saco thru the trees, and the headlamps passing by were actually above me, and I semed to get a second wind, my steps becoming more sure and energetic. I got to the eastern edge of the Saco, and even though it was kinda deep, maybe knee- to-hip in places, I saw a path of possible stepping stones across the river, went back into the woods, found a much more substantial branch to use as a fording staff, and got down to the business of balance and long steps from stone to wet stone.
I am proud to say that I nothing more than the soles of my boots got wet, and shortly found myself up on the eastern shoulder of Rte 302, in about the middle of the stand of birches mentioned in the route directions on NEclimbs…I was so pumped!!!
I crossed the highway, and then shut off my headlamp to take in the sofa-king AWESOME night sky in Crawford notch...pitch black ridges high on either side, and above, the cloudless sky alight with the sagan-esque ”billions and billions” of stars above, the milky way in plain view…I oooohed and ahhhhed like a star-struck teen.
Back at the car I was surprised to find frost on the roof and fenders, seeing as how I was sweating and down to a single layer kept warm by the exertions of a 2-hour decent hike. Once at the car though, and not humping that shiatload of gear anymore, I quickly felt chilled and was glad to get everything packed away and the car heater blasting. Oh, for what it’s worth, from the time I started the hike in, to when I returned to the car, I spent a solid 9.5 hours in the woods and on the rock
Now, in the run up to this event, I’d talked a whole lot of smack about camping out. that didn’t happen. The Colonial motel in N. Cornflake provided me a nice, warm, dry. $50 room – hey, it’s my birthday, I can splurge, right? – but not until after a bloody-rare blue-cheese bacon burger and several celebratory local drafts at Horsefeathers, with a monster ice-cream-covered brownie for desert…oh yeah, a fitting cap to the day
crappy, graininy cel phone pics! we love 'em!!
cheers mates!
My only regret is that it will be so long (all winter?) until I can return.
Robbovius, 11/5/07
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