Winter School: 
Flume Gorge Ice Climbing and Hiking 
Trip Leader: Hector Briceno 

Climbers/Hikers: 
 Yoko Miyata, 
 Dave Comi
 Alyssa Danigelis, 
 Jeb Mirczak,
 Christiaan Adams, 
 Ben Ingram

On Friday the six of us met in the parking lot and loaded up two
vehicles at 7:30 to set out for Flume Gorge in N.H to go ice climbing.
7:30 p.m. that is.  The weather at night was excellent when we started
out for the gorge; there were some flurries but it was mainly a clear
night.

We left the parking lot loaded with multiple changes of clothes,
several ropes and ice climbing gear around [midnight?].  The
right-hand side of the gorge was a massive ice wall and there was
plenty of space to leave our packs and belay even though the Flume
hadn't completely frozen over.  Hector began to lead a climb but found
that the ice was on the soft side.  He wisely retreated and we all
followed him to the top of the cliff to set up top ropes.  Once two
routes were set up we rapped down and began to climb.

Most of us had little or no ice climbing experience but we learned
quickly (harnesses double backed, biners locked, boots parallel to the
ice).  Lighting the route only with our headlamps and functioning on
great doses of adrenaline, we climbed away for a few hours.  Hector
demonstrated dry tooling for us and managed to make a spark on the
rock. He later finished a route using only one ice axe
(self-inflicted, unlike Alyssa's unintentional one-axe climbing).

At around [4:30 a.m. ?] we returned to the parking lot and readied our
packs for a short hike up Mt. Pemigewasset (2557 feet).  The short,
snowy hike went slowly with our heavy packs and lack of sleep, but we
made it to an exposed lookout point around dawn.  We were treated to a
hot pink sunrise over the mountains that lit up the snow.  We huddled
around the stoves for a beef ramen breakfast before zipping into (or
on top of) our super-toasty -15 degree bags.  Yoko, Dave, Hector and
Jeb braved the tarp, which had a tendancy to flap in the wind.  The
rest of us squashed into Christiaan's tent, which had the only
disadvantage of Ben's snoring :). t A word about insulated Nalgene
bottles filled with hot water: they rock!  While we were sleeping
several hikers came by the lookout point (we heard them talking) and
must have thought we were either extremely lazy to be camped out
around noon-time, or really hard core.

By 3 p.m. or so we were making a good pace down the trail back to the
parking lot.  After another round of gear shuffling we drove down the
road to Hanson Farm Road for another hike.  There we attempted to hike
to the fine, yet elusive, Georgiana Falls.  After hiking for one
hours, they were still at large.  Who knows if we might have seen the
lower falls.  We then turned around at Hector's Command, since we had
lost the trail long ago.  After searching for different alternatives,
Hector took command yet again and said that we will retrace our steps
even if it means going uphill for a bit which we all did.  We got back
to the car around six and had a fine dinner at the diner in Woodstock.

Ice climbing at night is the best!

Alyssa.