The first time I heard about people ice climbing Flume Gorge, I was probably eighteen years old. It was only a little before then that I even became aware of anyone ice climbing at all. Before the internet, riding your bike around town, you thought the wildest stuff that went down was in the woods that your parents didn’t know about. But oh, how once you got a driver’s license, the world opened up. I’ll never forget one of the first times driving north into Franconia Notch, seeing a group of ice climbers going up a pitch just off the highway on Route 93. My double-take nearly yanked the steering wheel over into the next lane. Holy crap, what the hell are they doing? I thought they were the coolest people in the world.
So you can imagine my excitement when nearly thirty years later, I got to be one of those people.
I mean, who’s cooler than them?
Climbing with North Country Climbing
Last year I tried ice climbing for the first time on Kinsman Notch with Rusty Talbot from North Country Climbing. I went with my son, his friend, and my brother-in-law, and we all loved it. I enjoyed it so much that I plan to sign up for these coordinated efforts again and again. This winter, my son couldn’t make it because of a torn rotator cuff, but my daughter was game, so she and a friend joined me for an incredible adventure to Flume Gorge.
Signing on with Rusty again, I didn’t know that Flume Gorge was the plan—wherever we went was fine by me. In fact, the previous weekend I was climbing Mount Pemigewasset when I overheard a bunch of people talking at the summit about going to observe the ice climbing at Flume Gorge after their hike. I thought to myself, the badasses at Flume Gorge, you mean, not thinking there was any chance some beginner ice climbers like us would be heading that way anytime soon. Rusty, it turns out, had other plans.
We’re going to the gorge!
Flume Gorge
First off, the approach to Flume Gorge is beautiful in its own right, whether you are ice climbing or not. Before this past weekend, I had only been to the gorge during the summer, when you pay a fee to access it. It’s beautiful then, but on a sunny winter day with a fresh pile of snow all around, it’s heavenly. Before we even made it to the flumes of ice cascading down the gorge, I was happy with the experience. Excited about what was to come, of course, but in love with the scenery enough to feel satisfied with the day before it began.
But ice climbing was epic. If you haven’t tried it and are in reasonable shape, I highly recommend it. It taps into the contemplative aspect of climbing while giving you a thrill of personal achievement when you do something that looks utterly impossible. And like other activities, once you start doing it, you improve. Even though I had only done it once before, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was able to climb some considerably more difficult lines than I could the previous winter. This was in large part due to the continued improvement in my fitness and physical health, but anytime you find yourself getting stronger on the other side of 40, it’s a thrill.
The hike in is beautiful and worth it even if you’re just going to watch the ice climbers.
The Climbing
We climbed four principal lines at the start of the gorge, which Rusty and some of the other climbers adjusted as the day went on. After several successful climbs, we took a little break to explore the gorge, admiring the efforts of other climbers and the biggest icicles I have ever seen up close. Working your way up the gorge, you are essentially walking on the frozen torrents of the Pemigewasset River. Knowing how thunderous this river becomes when the thaw arrives and the spring flow begins, the experience was surreal.
After a good little break to rest our arms, we attempted another ice climb but found we had little left in the tank—which was great. That’s what you want. To expend all of your energy and give it everything you can. Even when I was climbing, there were times where it felt like my arms were completely dead and it would be impossible to continue.
But then you pitch an axe into the ice, hang from it with one arm, and allow your other arm to dangle so that blood starts to flow into it again. If you give it enough of a shake and time to rest, lo and behold, you can start to feel your fingers come back and recover enough strength to make a few more moves up the pitch. It’s not a lot, but in two cases, for me, it was just enough to make it to the top of the rope and touch the carabiners where the line was anchored.
Nothing Quite Like It
As I sit here writing, I’m wracking my brain to think of another athletic activity that matches the intensity of that moment—when your body feels like it has nothing left to give and somehow, through faith in the movement, your body finds a way to get there. Sure, a lot of athletic pursuits and life in general can be summed up that way, if we’re talking in generalities, but ice climbing draws that feeling into such a precise moment of self-awareness—revealing your limitations and abilities—that I’m struggling to imagine where else you can replicate it.
I’ve rock climbed, which is similar, but swinging ice axes into a frozen waterfall drains your energy far faster than any rock climb I’ve ever done. And even though I’ve run a marathon, climbed mountains, and done some other extreme athletic challenges, ice climbing brings into focus “the line” where you think you can’t go any further, so clearly, so suddenly, that I find it to be one of the most rewarding physical challenges I’ve ever faced.
Working on the final ascents of the day.
Facing Doubt
Ice climbing is a sport of overcoming doubt:
No way, can I stand on two little spikes sticking into a sheet of ice.
How am I going to climb a vertical wall?
What if the axe doesn’t find a notch to set into?
What if I fall?
But the tools work. It’s your mind you have to overcome. And if you do fall, you are tethered to a rope belayed by a climbing partner on the ground below. A big improvement in my climbing came when I actually fell for the first time, and my daughter caught me on the belay, no problem. That allowed me to relax a bit and in that calmer state, I found the energy to ascend the toughest line I’ve ever climbed.
Even the exit was magical. My advice: GO!
Walking back to our cars through the Pemigewasset River Covered Bridge