lx93
New member
- Joined
- Sep 19, 2005
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Last Wednesday, another hiker & I set out to bag Old Speck. Since it would only be 0.1 more mile out of our way, we also were going to try to do The Eyebrow, an 800-foot cliff with awesome views of Grafton Notch.
Our first warning that we were in for a treat was the cable for footing. It soon became obvious that I wouldn’t be able to make it because unlike my partner who had crampons, I only had Stablicers. These help out greatly on level ice, and somewhat sloping ice, but not STEEP ice like on The Eyebrow.
My partner was willing to turn back at this time, but I had the dumb idea that I could just bushwhack around the icy parts. If we had only taken a few moments to look at the map, we would have seen that it would have been a much better idea to do this on the right instead of the left.
But we didn’t, and wound up turning back after gaining 500(?) feet elevation. This was possibly the 3rd best option; the best would’ve been to either have brought the right gear along, or to have realized one’s limitations without that gear and turned back at the cable. But coming down, I slipped, banged up my shoulder when my pack snagged & jerked me back, and learned a painful lesson in why crampons are worth their weight in gold.
I did at least forge a lifelong friendship w/ my partner, who has my unfailing loyalty from their insisting on carrying my 30, 40(?) lb. pack back to our cars while carrying theirs at the same time.
I’m not going to name them because I’m sure that there will be people who would tear us both to shreds for making a mistake, when it was actually 100% my fault. But, if someone else DOESN’T make that same mistake, at least we’ll have accomplished something by posting this.
Our first warning that we were in for a treat was the cable for footing. It soon became obvious that I wouldn’t be able to make it because unlike my partner who had crampons, I only had Stablicers. These help out greatly on level ice, and somewhat sloping ice, but not STEEP ice like on The Eyebrow.
My partner was willing to turn back at this time, but I had the dumb idea that I could just bushwhack around the icy parts. If we had only taken a few moments to look at the map, we would have seen that it would have been a much better idea to do this on the right instead of the left.
But we didn’t, and wound up turning back after gaining 500(?) feet elevation. This was possibly the 3rd best option; the best would’ve been to either have brought the right gear along, or to have realized one’s limitations without that gear and turned back at the cable. But coming down, I slipped, banged up my shoulder when my pack snagged & jerked me back, and learned a painful lesson in why crampons are worth their weight in gold.
I did at least forge a lifelong friendship w/ my partner, who has my unfailing loyalty from their insisting on carrying my 30, 40(?) lb. pack back to our cars while carrying theirs at the same time.
I’m not going to name them because I’m sure that there will be people who would tear us both to shreds for making a mistake, when it was actually 100% my fault. But, if someone else DOESN’T make that same mistake, at least we’ll have accomplished something by posting this.
