After dropping off Emilie and her father in Montreal at the bus station the night before I drove down to Gorham, New Hampshire. My plan was to go up Mount Washington via Pinnacle Gully but having gotten into Gorham at 01h00 I decided that a 04h00 start might be a little crazy.

After climbing Wright and Algonquin in the Adirondacks on Wednesday and the alpine area of Mount Washington on Thursday it was time to take a bit of a break. I arrived in Millinocket Maine fairly late and on vapours in the fuel tank (really need to order those jerry cans) and checked into a hotel there, had entirely too much Chinese takeout and went to sleep.

On Tuesday Emilie, her father Roger and Myself drove down to Keene Valley and after a stop at the Mountaineer to pick up some supplies and at the Baxter Mountain Inn for dinner we headed out to the Meadows Road trailhead and set-up camp. First thing in the morning we packed up camp and drove over to the Adirondack Loj trailhead where we headed off to climb Algonquin and Wright.

Today I went out for a trail run with the Ottawa Valley Offroaders. There were five vehicles out, a severely modified Samurai, two Jeep YJs with big lifts and tires, a stock Ranger 4x4, and my Land Rover Discovery II.

This was my first time off-road since performing many significant upgrades to the vehicle, including a lockable transfer case, limited slip differential in the front and ARB air-locker in the back as well as a set of Firestone Destination 2 M/T LT245/75R16 tires.

Well, I thought I'd put something into the gear review section right away. The first thing that came to mind were the Camelot C4's from Black Diamond. Yes I know they're no longer brand new, but after using them for two seasons I have to say they've stood up to any abuse I've thrown at them so far without even the appearance of any kind of abnormal wear. They still place as smoothly as new and give a very positive confidence inspiring placement, something none of the other cams really do quite as well. They also really don't seem to walk nearly as much as any other brand of cam I've used s

The Cedar Run
The Cedar Run opened recently right at the corner of Highway 86 and Highway 9N just down the road from the ACC Keene Farm hut. With the Cliffhanger closed due to fire, and the food at the Noonmark diner being, well... diner food we thought we'd give the Cedar Run a go.

Opening at 06h00 for breakfast unless you're going for an alpine start even the earliest riser can get a nice hot breakfast before hitting the trails in the area. The building is entirely done in natural looking wood and wash finished wood panel. Almost everything appears to have been constructed specifically for the location.

Present was Andrew Hutton and Emilie Moreau. Picked at random from the "100 Best Hikes of the Northeast" we attempted a one day ascent of Mount Dix.

We were lured off route by the beautiful open slides covering most of the face of Dix. Climbing carefully we slowly made our way to the top of one slide, then bushwhacked over to join up with another slide further to the left and found it to be too steep and wet to attempt without additional gear. We will certainly return sometime and climb that slab as well, but with rope.

Marcy Dam
This trip consisted of Andrew Hutton, Emilie Moreau, and Paul Hutton. We were going to snowshoe to the top of Mount Marcy. The hike in to Marcy dam was as usual quite uneventful, though due to park regulations we have to wear snowshoes even though the surface was hardpack and ice on a flat access road.

Drifting snow The snow as we approached the upper mountain began to get deeper and as the terrain became more open large drifts began to form. This makes for tiring climbing to say the least, but at least this trip it was on snow shoes and not bare boot slogging as it had been in the past.

On a cross continental solo road trip while driving through Rogers Pass (Selkirk Mountains) I noticed Mount MacDonald and decided to give a direct assault a go. After reviewing some guidebooks at the welcome centre Herdman's Couloir was picked as an interesting approach.

The bushwhacking approaches in Rogers Pass are not trivial. The distance may not look like much but the forest is very dense and movement is difficult at best. It also involves a river crossing (found the downed tree to cross in the morning, just forded the freezing water in the evening).

Following the glacial run-off streams on the way up the going was reasonably safe and secure but there was a large amount of loose scree and talus to contend with.

Nathan Bryant and I met up at Keene Farm. Saturday we headed to Chapel Pond where I led Chouinard's Gully, the climb took about 3 hours, most of which was spent waiting for the party ahead of us to put in about 8 screws per pitch and get them back out again. I think I used 3 on the first pitch, 2 on the second, and about 3 on the final pitch... it's really not that tough of a climb. As predictable, I took a block of ice in the shoulder at the top of the first pitch because I paused under the other party to put in a screw when I really should have just traversed over to the belay anchor another ten feet away.