Birthday Wishes

To celebrate my birthday, Krista and I went ice climbing up at Bristol Cliffs in the morning.  Taking a different approach route that normal, we cut far left and discovered a flow of ice I had never seen before.  Though it has definitely been climbed before, I had never been up this particular route.  The climb was about one full rope length and WI2.  The ice wasn't particularly thick and there actually was a decent amount of water flowing underneath.  A fun climb overall; we dubbed it "Birthday Boy".  

After some climbing, we went out to breakfast at Snap's in Bristol, then later on in the afternoon we drove up to Burlington for some pizza at American Flatbread (amazing).  A wonderful day!

Flaking out the rope

Having fun!

Scoping out the rest of the climb

Starting up the climb

Krista and I at the base of the climb

On a Shoestring Budget

Drove over to NH to climb yet another amazing gully climb.  Shoestring gully is a ~6 pitch WI2 alpine gully climb.  Situated in Crawford Notch SP, amongst other classics such as Willey's Slide and Cinema Gully.  Shoestring was one of the best ice climbs I have done in years.  Despite the moderate nature of the the climbing, the alpine feeling of the route and the length (nearly 2000' of climbing/approach) added up to create a wonderful outing.  The only downfall of the climb was that near the base of the 2nd pitch, we were overtaken by a throng of climbers, due to some climbers ahead of us going a bit slow.  The ice was brittle (really brittle) and we were constantly pelted with chunks of ice.

Only two pitches from the top

Soloing the first "pitch"

On top at last; Mt. Willey in the background

A climber starting up the 2nd pitch

Shoestring gully on Mt. Willard