What a crazy sport! You either hate it, or you get addicted to it. For me, it was the beauty that got me hooked. The forests and mountains of New England are incredible in the middle of winter—quiet, still, and sometimes almost unreal. There is something wonderfully simple about looking at a frozen waterfall somewhere in the mountains and deciding, “Hey, I’m going to climb that thing.”
In 1989, I took the incredible ice climbing program offered by the Boston Chapter of the Appalachian Mountain Club, after spending the previous year taking its rock climbing course. The Boston AMC Mountaineering Committee ran one of the finest volunteer outdoor education programs I ever experienced. The instructors gave enormous amounts of their own time to teach people how to climb safely, make good decisions, and take care of one another in serious mountain terrain.
A huge part of the reason I wanted to learn ice climbing was that I so often encountered extremely steep snow gullies and actual ice while mountaineering and doing alpine climbs. I had already been using an ice axe and crampons for years, having mostly taught myself, but I wanted to learn how to safely use a rope, place protection, build anchors, belay, manage ropes, and move efficiently on steep snow and ice.
So, in addition to the pure joy of climbing frozen waterfalls, I wanted to become a safer and more capable mountaineer. That was also one of the reasons I later took advanced avalanche safety and rescue classes, along with advanced winter mountain safety courses through the AMC. Some of these sports can be extremely dangerous, and when something goes wrong high in the mountains, rescue may be a very long way away.
Learning from experienced instructors—and having the right equipment, sound technique, good judgment, and enough practical experience—is critical to staying alive. Knowing when to turn back is every bit as important as knowing how to keep climbing. The program also taught me how important it is to choose good climbing partners: people you can trust when the weather deteriorates, the route becomes uncertain, or a difficult decision has to be made.
Many of those weekends were based at Harvard Cabin, a rustic two-story cabin in the White Mountains. We slept upstairs in sleeping bags, while the downstairs served as the kitchen, dining room, classroom, and gathering place. In the evenings we cooked together, swapped stories, studied guidebooks and routes, checked the weather, talked about snow and ice conditions, and got to know the people we would be trusting on the mountain the next day.
From there, we headed out for ice climbing weekends throughout the White Mountains, including places such as Frankenstein Cliff in Crawford Notch and climbs in Franconia Notch. We practiced the full range of skills: movement on ice, ice screw placement, anchors, belaying, rope management, evaluating ice conditions, and making safe decisions as a team.
The course was about much more than technique. It created friendships and climbing partnerships that led to many more days in the mountains. It also influenced my own desire later in life to volunteer, teach, mentor, and help newcomers in outdoor activities. I had benefited enormously from experienced people sharing what they knew, and I never forgot that.
Some of my best winter days were spent with my friend Rick, sometimes at twenty degrees below zero, halfway up some huge hanging, semi-detached icicle, laughing as another storm approached. Looking back, we were probably a little crazy. But those were some incredible days.
A note about the photos: Most of these were taken with one of those cheap disposable cameras and later scanned on a cheap 30-bit scanner. The quality may be rough, but the memories certainly aren't.