Advanced Base Camp: (Alternate) Realities

So we're back among the working until quitting time tomorrow. It's been a bit of a whirlwind past few days. New Years day was spent working on Base Camp - first shoveling off the roof, and then taking care of a couple things in the basement we procrastinated for far too long. After ten days of climbing and goofing off, we were both still jonesin' to climb, but knew we had two feet of cemented snow waiting back in the driveway in Syracuse. It took both of us over an hour of shoveling to get the driveway clear. That's OK, back home in Keene tomorrow and back to some fantastic conditions.

Our last couple days of climbing were Sunday and Monday. Both days were spent around Chapel Pond. Sunday, we were headed down the Canyon and found Lions empty, except for two nice guys. We threw a quick warmup on Rule of the Bone and then climbed three different lines on Lions. We probably should have been more ambitious and headed to another climb, but it was fun to fire a bunch of leads on some relatively steep ice without really working for it.

Monday was a fantastic day. We headed back up to the canyon hoping to get on Hot Shot, but fully expecting to find it occupied. Amazingly, it was empty and I got to put up a lead on a climb that I can remember not being able to top out on top-rope four years ago. Good times. From there, we decided to head down to Haggis and Cold Toast. This was our first time on this route and it was fantastic. Very deceiving, this climb kind of lulls you in to thinking it's going to be easy. Wrong. Everything is foreshortened from below and the pillar in the middle is pretty darn steep. What a scrappy route and it was relatively thin and brittle so it was definitely full-value.

Chapel Pond is looking good.