Trip Report: Cannon Mountain, NH
Mongo
Trip Report: Cannon Mountain, NH
Disclaimer: It's kinda long, it'll probably piss you off by not using
correct, spelling or punctuation, and it doesn't discuss anything you
will want to do with a rack of draws.
I managed to scam a business trip to Boston for a meeting that ended on
Friday. Consequently, I figured the best thing I could do was to save
the boss a few bucks by extending the trip over the weekend to get
cheaper airfare..... Hmmmmm, maybe this would be a good time to check
out the climbing in the White Mountains.
My friend Norman had been to Cannon a few times and was psyched to do
some aid climbing on the "Fruit Cup Wall". He and a buddy, Steve, had
done another aid line, "the Ghost" the year before and wanted to do
something harder. I primarily wanted to free climb in the hope that I
could do more pitches and see more of the cliff. Anyway, all we knew
was that we were going to Cannon for three days of fun and what we did
would depend on our motivation when we got there.
We met in the parking lot at the Cannon Trailhead late Thursday
night/Friday morning. Steve and Joe from New Brunswick, Norman from DC
(actually from New Brunswick), and Mongo from Virginia. Since we now
had four climbers we decided to split into two teams of two. It also
turned out that Steve was more psyched to free climb than aid anyway.
Norman and I decided to do the oft-crowded classic "Moby Grape" (III
5.8) and Steve and Joe opted for the VMC Direct Direct (III 5.10++).
We got a late 9 am start from the parking lot and headed up the talus
trudge. I identified myself as a sicko early on by telling everyone how
I love hiking up talus. I usually only get to see talus when I climb
back West so I was pretty excited at becoming reacquainted with talus
hopping. The recent rock slide had left a huge, impressive path of
destruction on the face, down the talus field, through the trees, and
almost to the hiking path in the Valley. There was one big room sized
boulder that cracked a big rock at the edge of the bike path!
We got to the base of "Moby Grape" and opted for the clean, classic 5.8
"Reppy's Crack" variation to start up the initial buttress. Reppy's
crack was like a dream; a 100' splitter hand/fist crack in clean,
perfect granite. You could just jam and jam and jam and then go "Oh
yeah, I really should put in some pro". The rest of Moby Grape was pure
fun and included lots of jamming, a couple of fun roofs, some face
climbing, and good exposure. One memorable pitch was the Finger of
Fate. You do an unprotected face traverse from the belay over lots of
air, traversing underneath a pointed, detached granite flake. I started
the traverse thinking that I just was supposed to traverse past the
flake, but then Norman woke me from my stupor by telling me the route
actually climbs up the scary-looking flake, steps off the top and
continues. It looked pretty scary but it was actually fairly easy and
really exposed. I stood up on the top of the flake on one foot and held
both hands in the air for a photo but Norman refused to take the picture
(I think he thought I had lost my mind and was embarrassed for me).
After getting kind of lost on the descent we rehydrated in the parking
lot and decided we need to do some more climbing; as if 9 pitches
weren't enough! We trudged back up the talus and over to the Cannon
slabs for some more fun. There was a party of two, five pitches up
"Lakeview" when we got to the base of the slabs. This party had started
up the talus at 9:00 am and had been on the route all day. "Lakeview"
looked fun and pretty easy (5.5) so we decided to fourth-class it. I
lost the draw, got to carry the pack and Norman got to go first. His
mission was to keep 3-4 pieces between us, and my mission was to try to
keep up to Norman while carrying the pack. We started cruising and
getting into the mode of moving fast and fluid. It was a lot of fun to
focus on the climbing movement and not have to stop for belays; I'm
still glad we didn't solo it though..... "Lakeview" goes up the right
side of the Cannon slabs, does a long leftward traverse near the top of
the slabs and finishes up the classic 5.7 Wiessner Corner (just left of
the concrete-, glue-, and cable-fortified "Old Man of the Mountains").
We ended up actually having to wait on the last pitch for the guys who
had been on the route all day to finish! I think we bummed them out
‘cause we did it so fast. Oh well, at least we all had fun.
Saturday, Norman and Steve went to do the first few pitches of the
"Fruit Cup" and Joe and I headed up "Vertigo". The first 5 pitches of
Vertigo are some of the most fun, varied climbing I have ever done on a
grade III. We did the first pitch of "Union Jack" which consisted of
some easy jams and lieback flakes. Then we got on to Vertigo proper. I
lead the second pitch which goes up some clean hand and finger cracks to
a thin flake that progressively gets smaller and ends at a partially
driven knifeblade with an attached sling. The trick now was to lower
25' off the pin and do a pendulum to a flared fingercrack. Joe laughed
at me as I first lowered 10', tried the swing, lowered two more feet,
tried the swing, and so on until I finally found the right pendulum
length. I did the pendulum, got the finger lock and then climbed up 10
more unprotected feet to the semi-hanging belay off small nuts and
tricams.
The next pitch was a thin 5.9 fingercrack followed by a weird committing
move to the right over a dihedral wall and then up a nice handcrack to
the base of the infamous "Halfmoon" offwidth. The offwidth was shaped
like a backwards question mark, 8-10" wide and split a smooth face. Joe
was pretty happy that I got to lead it since it involved about a 25-30'
runout on the 5.8/9 part of the crack. I was pretty happy too ‘cause I
like clean cracks and I like offwidths (see I told you I was a sicko).
I grunted my way up the offwidth a few inches at a time with kneebars,
heel-toe jams, arm bars and side pulls and arrived on a nice ledge to
await Joe. Joe made a lot of noise and thrashed and cussed just enough
to let me know that he was enjoying it too! The next pitch was a romp
up an easy corner. We finished by third-classing the last 400' to near
the top and, just for fun, traversed onto the last pitch of Moby Grape.
I would highly recommend Vertigo but I would also recommend rapping down
after the first 5 pitches to avoid the dirty, loose third class finish
and the long descent down the back of the cliff.
After eating and contemplating beer, we decided that we needed some more
fun before we swilled, so we again headed up the talus in search of
"Slip of Fools", a two pitch 5.10 slab/overhang route. This route was
recommended in a recent Rock and Ice, but by the look of the rap slings,
it didn't look like it get done too often. I would have a hard time
recommending it.....
We awoke stiff and only marginally aware until the coffee and ibuprofen
did it's magic. Since I had to leave by about 1:00 to drive back to
Boston, Norman and I decided we probably ought to do an area classic
"The Whitney-Gilman" (II-III 5.7+). The WG does up a prominent detached
buttress/arete for 6 or so pitches. We fired up the talus again (I was
liking the talus less and less by this point) and got to the base of the
ridge by 8:00. We romped up the ridge, enjoying the fun flakes, short
cracks, and relishing the nice exposure. The character of the ridge is
such that you get short steps of steep exposed climbing, followed by
nice ledges with good belays. The "pipe" pitch makes you stick your
butt out over 300' of air and makes you appreciate the fact (as you clip
the fixed pins) that the first ascent was done in the 1920's without any
protection! It's truly a classic climb and it's one of those kind of
routes that you can enjoy over and over.
We got back to the parking lot at 11:30 and as we were standing by our
car unloading our packs, a tourist drove by and asked us with a smirk
"aren't you boys gettin' kind of a late start?". When we told him "No,
we just got back down", the smirk disappeared and so did the tourist.
All in all it was a good first trip to Cannon. 30 pitches in 2.5 days,
five trips up the talus, good companions, and lots of sorta cold beer;
How much better could it have been? I hated to leave but now that I
know just how good the climbing is, I'm sure I'll be back.