Ice climbing Driving Force (WI 3), Smugglers Notch, Vermont

Elvira and I are currently celebrating Christmas and New Years in Stowe, Vermont, where we ski, snowshoe and ice climb :-) Yesterday we hiked up towards Smugglers Notch to ice climb. Smugglers is known as one of the best ice climbing areas in New England and we were not disappointed as we got do climb one of the classic moderates Driving Force (WI 3). Also I got to test the new equipment I got for Christmas: Prodigy gloves, Sabretooth Pro crampons and Blizzard harness from Black Diamond along with my latest purchase, Kayland 8000 boots, for my coming expedition to Alaska. It was all great and luckily the gloves and boots were way to warm for the excellent weather we enjoyed! Have a look at a picture slideshow from the day here.



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Ice climbing Dracula (WI 4+) and Standard Route (WI 3+), Frankenstein Cliff

A couple of days ago I went back to the Frankenstein Cliff, Crawford Notch, New Hampshire, USA to climb some of the harder ice routes that I had looked at a couple of weeks earlier during the Harvard Mountaineering Ice Intro trip. I drove with Jim Mediatore, a MIT graduate who has sneaked into the Harvard Mountaineering Club :-) It was snowing all day so the drive took 9 hours return which is almost twice the normal time. We thus only had time to climb two pitches of ice! However, it was well worth it as we got to climb two of the areas classic routes: Dracula (WI4+) and Standard Route (Window variation, WI 3+), which are reputed as being some of the best routes of the grade in New England. We certainly had a great time! Have a look of a slideshow of pictures from the day here.

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Winter ascent of Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, USA

Mt. Washington, New Hampshire, USA is the third highest mountain east of the rockies in North America. The mountain is only 1917 meters high and has a non-technical trail leading to the summit. However, the mountain is infamous for extremely bad weather and the summit is in fact the spot on the planet where the highest wind velocity has ever been recorded (372 km/h in 1934). The high wind speed combined with low temperatures (as low as -75 °C with wind chill has been recorded on the summit) makes a winter ascent a potential serious undertaking but yesterday Elvira and I succeeded in summiting :-)

Leah Boch from the Harvard Mountaineering Club had organized a weekend trip to the Harvard Cabin (1073 m) at the foot of the mountain. We thus drove to Pinkham Notch Friday night and hiked to the hut. We arrived 1 AM and thus went straight to bed where Elvira and I endured a cold night in the cabin as we had forgotten to bring sleeping pads! A rather cold floor they have in the cabin I would say.
The next morning we were awakened by the daily radio call to the cabin caretaker which brought rather bad news: -23 °C at the summit with 120 km/h (75 mph) wind speed and 170 km/h (105 mph) wind gusts. Not unusual for Mt Washington but not ideal for a summit attempt!
Nevertheless, Elvira and I decided to give the summit a go - we would then turn around if it became too cold. As we walked towards the Lion Heads Trail we missed the turn and thus ended up on the parallel Tuckerman Ravine Trail. This turned out to be a lucky mistake as we later learned that the Thuckerman Ravine Trail had been sheltered from the wind compared to the Lion Head Tail (which follows a ridge).
We were thus blessed with great sunny weather and low wind most of the time (except at the Alpine Garden and the Summit). Furthermore, the wind speed dropped during the afternoon and even the summit was not too bad (30-40 mph).
We had actually planned to stay at in the cabin another night, but a snow storm warning for Sunday morning made us reconsider and we thus walked all the way down to Pinkham Notch (490 m) from the summit and drove home. Looking out of the window right now - I am glad we made that decision!

I can highly recommend ascending Mt. Washington in the winter. It is a very beautiful place as you can see from this slideshow and this 360° panorama video from the summit (QuickTime or iTunes required).

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First ice climb this season

Elvira and I have just joined the Harvard Mountaineering Club and last Saturday we joined the club for their annual Intro Ice Climbing trip. Albeit the ice was still a bit thin we had a great day where I tried to climb New England ice for the first time in my life. We went to the Frankenstein Area at Crawford Notch, New Hampshire which is 2.5 hrs drive from Boston. It was quite a distance to drive for one day's climbing - but it was certainly worth it. I look forward to going back when the ice has built up more to climb some of the classics such as Dracula. Wonder how they came up with these names..... Anyway, click here to see a slideshow of pictures from the trip.

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Testing my Nikon D300 in Boston

A week ago I bought the much hyped Nikon D300 camera and since then I have been playing around with it in the streets of Boston. I have to say that I am extremely impressed by the camera. Together with my vibration reducing Nikon VR 18-200 mm lens this camera is a killer in low-light conditions like inside the Boston Public Library. I have compiled a slideshow of pictures - some of which have been shot as high as ISO 3200 without obvious noise! Have a look of the slideshow of Boston Public Library, views from the Prudential Tower and Beacon Hill here.

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Harvard University, Cambridge

Albeit Elvira and I are affiliated with Harvard University we are unfortunately located in the boring "Longwood/Fenway" health campus rather that the historic campus in Cambridge. Last Sunday we thus took a stroll in Cambridge to see the beautiful historic sites such as Harvard Yard. Harvard is the oldest college in the USA, founded in 1636, and has educated six US presidents and several Nobel laureates. Another beautiful historic place in Boston!

The stroll also gave me an oppotunity to play around with Elvira's fisheye lens which gave some funny looking pictures shown here.

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Elvira in New York City

Last weekend was Thanksgiving weekend and while I was in Denmark working for the Danish Medical Research Council, Elvira went on sightseeing in New York City.

Elvira got to see the famous Macy's Thanksgiving parade, Central Park, Empire State build, Ground Zero and the Statue of Liberty. Well, have a look at a picture slide show from her trip here.

In central park she also saw an amazing trio of street dancers. Have a look at a movie of the dancers here [Quicktime or iTunes required].


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