To: mitoc@MIT.EDU, climbers@MIT.EDU, poxod@iname.com, arshav@MIT.EDU
Subject: trip report:  ice in Huntington
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1998 16:53:47 EST
From: Areg <aregjan@MIT.EDU>


So, on Friday night Alexey, Olya, Sasha and i leave Boston.  At 11:00pm we
are at Pinkham Notch.  We are planing to reach Harvard Cabin on that night,
and climb ice on next two days.  
By the time we are at Harvard Cabine it's already around 1:00am, and we 
prepare our tea while wispering to each other since everyone is asleep.  After 
a couple of minutes, Glen, another MITOC member, and his friend, come in.
Great -- everyone is pro-climbing today i see.  

We wake up around 7:00am in the morning, and we find the cabine filled with
people, everyone getting their arms ready for ice.  After a breakfast we
head toward Huntington Ravine, where we plan to climb Odell's Gully.  As we
approach the ice we see crowds of people roping up and getting ready.  
Well-well, I hope the construction helmet I wear will withstand all the falling
ice...Everyone pulls out shiny grivels, charlet-mosers, and other fancy and
expensive tools.  We get out our mixure of "tools", some of them old
ice hammers, some of them just ice axes with good technical characteristics.  Sasha
digs out this HOME MADE(read: laboratory made) copy of Grivel Machine, which 
has the same shape as the original, but its shaft is made of fiberglass.  We try
it on hard ice -- it works great!  Sasha later claims -- even better than the 
original(his other tool). I mean really -- why do we spend those piles of money 
on tools??


   As we choose the right side of the gully, we rope up into me-alexey and olya-sasha 
pairs. Something weird happens, and we start up parallel to each other, me and Olya
leading.  The ice is great, only a bit wet, wich makes it even softer and kinda
better.  Our route is made of this frozen staircase -- you walk a 
meter, you climb vertical two, walk another meter, climb another two.  So, that
allows me to free my hands and do carefull and solid screw placements.  We are
using soviet made titanium scriews, and before i start climbing the second 
"step" I place and equalize two screws ("just in case").  At that moment I look
up, and see Olya's crampon's points exactly above my face.  "Bad move
soldier", I think -- "If she falls, your face will be honored by her crampon-print
for the rest of your life."  So I move a bit to the left, and finish the "step," 
which was maybe a bit higher than 3meters.  As I finish that I hear Alexey hooting and
shouting something from the belay-station, either praises or curses -- I don't 
differentiate.  Here I notice that my fingers, protected only by these thin gloves,
have turned completelly numb.  As I clear my tools, small fountains of water spring
through the pick-holes from unter the ice.  Water freezes on the rope, carabiners,
and my hands.  
   Finally I set up the "semi-hanging" belay station, shout "self belay" and
then "bellay on"(only in russian:  "samostraxovka", "straxovka gotova") to Alexey, 
and start pulling the frozen rope.  Damn, this is beautifull but this sux -- there 
is this thin line of ice that has built on the rope, making it very hard to manage.
Next thing I find out -- I have to bang on the carrabiners in order to break their
frozen gates open.  The ice screws are even worse -- you have to litterally lick them, 
in order to clear them from ice.  In 20 minutes Alexey finishes the pitch, and
starts the second pitch, which he completes in couple of minutes.  Meanwhile Sasha
and Olya are racing with Alexey to see who will finish first.  As I am freezing on
the belay station, I see this two soloists down-climbing the left wall of the gully.
In ten minutes one of them passes us, without no rope, no protection.  It's just
feels scary to look at these folks...Finally, Alexey shouts "starxovka gotova" 
and I finish the last section of the 1.5 pitch climb.  As I get there I 
immediately put on my warm German army mittens, and my fingers start to ache
terribly as they warm up.  Yes, ice is "fun, only different."  As we pull out the
food, we find out that Alexey's thermos is shattered, and we are left without much 
water.  The wind is very strong, which cancels any chances for an ascent on
Mt. Washington.
    The descent it done through South Gully, which is packed with steep and hard snow.  
Almost right on first 10 meters I trip on my crampon straps and fall (damn you
Trango!).  Everything is at it's best -- self arrest, followed by a stupefied idiotic
"what_happened???" expression on my face :), etc...We continue the descent, and after some
distance Olya, who was descending above me, falls.  As she passes next to me I get
to catch her hand, which kinda stops her.  More looks, laugh, jokes, Alexey takes pictures 
of the mess, and we continue.  Another 100m of descent (Sasha is waaaay ahaid of us,
and this is the first time for him in this kind of environment!), and this time Olya
REALLY falls -- her crampon's back points catch on the rope coils dangling on her back,
and she plumets straight on me (~5m bellow her),  waiving her crampons, ice tools, and
other deadly weapons.  "Crampon-priiiints..." I remember as I am preparing to catch her
(I didn't have an excuse -- she is only half my weight!).  Thump!!  I got her.  Awright, 
she is doing fine, what about us?  I check all her tools, and neither is "planted" anywhere.

We get to the cabin quite excited and tired.  The cabine is *filled* with people, everyone
is trying to cook a dinner, dry their clothes, invade and claim some space for future use, etc...
The joints of my fingers are swollen and ache, and on next day they develope some minor
blisters.  This is so funny, I think -- blisters on the joints! :)
Glen tells us about Pinacle Gully, our destination for Sunday.  He recommends us to take swim 
suits. :)  We open a bottle of "Saperavi" Georgian wine, the "pride of Caucasus" (after
Armenian cognac, of course), and cellebrate the begining(for us) of the season.  Then
we decide to shock our "fat free" American friends by pulling out a piece of curred
pork fat back (pretty much 100% fat), a traditional Ukrainian apetizer that goes with vodka, 
and to our surprise nobody turns it down (except the vegetarians).  So we eat fat back,
drink good wine, laugh, and then go to bed, just to find out that our sleeping bags have
somehow turned humid.

    In the morning we wake up at 5:30, eat, and leave the cabin at 7:00.  We are the first ones
at the ice.  The Pinnacle is very narrow, this time we can't go parallel.  Since nobody
wants to jumar, we decide the following -- me-Alexey pair will lead, leaving the screws
behind, while olya-sasha will follow us, and their leader won't waste time screwing
the ice.  As Alexey goes, another pair approaches, and starts parallel to Alexey.  Their
leader doesn't seem to worry much about the below-standers, including his
bellayer, and we keep getting bombed by his ice chunks (the guy won't even shout "ice"!).
Finally I take off.  As I am halfway up, we see some Ukrainian friends of ours, approaching
the ice.  We throuw some ice on them to say hello (no, just kidding :)).  I finish the first
pitch and immediatelly start the second one, which is more like walking in the hard snow than
climbing.  On my way up I find a nice piton.  When I finish the second pitch, I find out
that ice is so thin that not only the screws are very lousy, but also they crack the blocks
of ice, sending them down.  Finally I set up some pseudo-protection, find myself a place to sit,
and accept Alexey.  As he is about to finish, I tell him 
"Alexey, carefull, the ice is very thin."  
"Really?  Where did you place the bellay station then?"
"Alexey, I placed it in shit.  Now climb and don't think of falling."
At that point the "evil" leader passes us, and we start looking for a cover from his
ice cannonade.  This is really too much -- the last section is nothing but an ice
bulge, that can be avoided, why is he pounding it so hard??  Oh well, we wait untill
they finish, and our last pitch takes us on this beautifull flat area on the edge of
the cliff.  We wait for olya-sasha, and after eating we cross the Alpine garden, and
descend through Lion's head.  As we descend the trail me and Alexey show-off in
front of ladies by down-climbing ice and rock without crampons. :)

On the trail to Pinkham Notch we meet Hector, who turned out to have tried his first ice
climbing on Pinacle (3+).  We get to the car around 7:00pm, and return to Boston, listening
to the songs of bard Sherbakov in the car.

And as my fingers are recovering, I am preparing myself for another climb tomorow on Black
Dike.  Hopefully there will be pictures and reports.  


