Big Day in the Adirondaks
So, we went up to the Adirondaks for a day of climbing. We got off to a rough start, oversleeping, etc. We hiked into Pitchoff North climbing area and were pretty intimidated. Neither one of us wanted to climb what we were looking at and planned to turn around until we found our friend Steve and his buddies. We walked up the hill like we were walking to our deaths.
Once we got up close to the climbs they weren't so intimidating. We asked for advice on what to climb and a reccomendation or two came for Blue Chute, a gully climb. It looked fun and was a grade 3. Don led up to a belay station and I followed. The bottom of the climb was pretty unpredictable. We went up to the second pitch which looked like really nice climbing until Don pulled down a car hood sized piece of ice. I quickly jumped out of the way, keeping don locked off. You should have seen the avalanche he caused! He climbed up to the top and belayed me up. It was more fun on the second pitch. Of course I was scared to death on the rapell.
We then hiked over to a climb called Arm and Hammer. We misunderstood what we heard and began climbing the left side of the climb because there was another party on the right. We thought we were on the grade 3+ portion of the climb, besided it didn't look too bad. As people walked over and started talking to me they asked me if Don knew he was leading a grade 4 climb. Neither one of us knew it! So, up Don went. It was a crazy climb! The bottom was at a decent angle, the top was a never ending bunch of vertical pillars. Don used all of his ice screws and could have used some more. It was a very long but fun climb! We were so excited to climb something hard and actually feel comfortable on it!
