Cathedral and Whitehorse Ledges, NH

I'd been dying to get up to New Hampshire for so long, but none of my climbing partners could take enough time off until this weekend. Benoit wanted to get checked out as a keyholder at Intervale, but he had to be back Saturday night. Rob could go Sunday, but he didn't have a car. The solution? I drove up with Benoit Friday night, and Rob drove my car up Sunday morning.

After a quick scramble to pack all the gear, Benoit and I finally hit the road at 7:00. With a couple of minor missed turns, we were at Intervale by ten for some food, wine, and Scrabble under the glow of the Coleman lantern with Pearl (the cabin manager), Steve, and Michael. Unfortunately the weather in the morning was cool and wet, with a light rain finally tapering off to a fine mist by breakfast time. It was looking pretty bad for climbing, and Benoit was a little more bummed than I was, because he had only one day. Instead, we went for a hike up to Nancy Falls, a lovely cascade nestled in the woods. After arriving back at the car by two, we discovered that the sun that was beginning to break through the clouds had already dried up the roads, and we quickly decided to find some rock.

Michael had been thinking about possibly going rock climbing sometime, and he decided there was no time like the present. We found Cathedral Ledge in spite of our guidebooklessness, and hiked in under its awe-inspiring loftiness to the practice slopes on the far north end of the cliff. We found Child's Play, an easy 5.5 on the far right-hand side, and set up a toprope. Benoit, Michael, and I proceeded to dispatch the route, Michael having no difficulty despite it being his introduction to rock climbing.

I hustled back up the climb to dismantle the toprope, finishing with what must have been a 5.10 friction variation (fun), and set up on Bird's Nest (5.9), a little ways left. Benoit gave it the first shot, and found it challenging. I next managed a redpoint, albeit a strenuous one, and enjoyed some real nice fist jams, hand jams, and finger locks. At this point we decided to see what Michael could do on a real route. He huffed and puffed, and with a lot of hangdogging and a bit of hauling by his belayer, he managed to claw his way to the top. Afterward, he mentioned that he had just gained a lot of respect for the skills required for climbing.

As the sun was dipping lower by this time, I repeated the climb once more to take down the toprope, rapping down on someone else's convenient rope nearby. That was it for the day, and Benoit had to take off, but I looked forward to a long day at Whitehorse with Rob in the morning.

Despite my fears about my car's ability to make it up to Intervale, Rob showed up on time and ready to climb. We drove to the Cathedral Ledge parking area, loaded up, and hiked in to Whitehorse. The first thing that struck me about the rock was how incredibly smooth it was. It flowed downward in graceful undulating waves full of climbers surfing their way upward.

We decided to do Sliding Board, a 5.7 friction route just to the left of Standard Route. It was immediately apparent that we would not be alone. The starting ledge had about two full climbing classes waiting to go, with instructors patiently explaining frictioning, belaying, and whatever else these neophytes needed to know. I was a little concerned that this was going to be too easy. We started up finally, after waiting for a class of two to go ahead. I led first, and had to wait for the belay spot to become free. While there, I was informed by a party of three on the right that they were there first and would be going ahead of us. I was like, "screw this," but they ended up kindly letting us go. The entire climb we shared belay stations with both the parties ahead and behind us.

The climb went smoothly, yet slowly. I felt like we could have done the route in half the time. It was fun...albeit not very challenging. This was my first multi-pitch route, and the views were tremendous. Rob led the crux pitch, which was really only about two moves of 5.7 (disappointing). Protection was seriously lacking for most of way--only two pitches had anything approaching adequate pro. After eight pitches of pleasant slab climbing, we topped out, had lunch and a couple of summit photos, and hiked down.

Since it was only around three by that time, we headed over to Cathedral to do a few shorter routes. Rob started off with a lead of Bird's Nest, which kind of pissed him off because he had to hang once (otherwise he climbed it quite well). I followed, discovering that the route hadn't gotten any easier on my third time. By this time, They Died Laughing (5.9) had opened up, and I was psyched for an on-sight lead. I breezed up the first section, which was a thin finger crack, and then got stuck in the middle when I started to get pumped, put in a really bad piece of gear, and camped on a small ledge with the dubious nut at my feet. I knew that nut was totally worthless, which was getting me gripped, not to mention the fact that I was five feet left of the crack and couldn't see in it to put in any more pro. So, I waited there for a while until I calmed down some. I placed a nut by feel only, and then found a small nubbin to step up on, allowing me to traverse back over to the crack. Seeing that my no-look piece was good, I had no trouble finishing the route from then on. Despite my momentary quandary on the route, this was probably my best on sight flash to date.