Trip Report: Whitney Gilman, NH

Climb Date: May 27th, 2012
Time round trip (Car to Car): 8 Hours
Party: 3 climbers including myself
Climb rating: 5.7


We wake up super early in North Conway, NH. Perhaps around 5:30AM to get ready to take on the Whitney Gilman route. Driving, from North Conway to Cannon Mountain took us about over an hour.

Our friend drops us off at the trail head. We sign in and walk down a nice paved trail. The easy walking ends when we find the foot path through the trees leading our way up to towards the climb. The hike through the trees wasn't the worse part. Once the trees ended, we faced a large scree field of loose rocks and boulders.

I was trying to carefully pick my way through the loose rocks towards the climb. A few times, things shifted under my foot, setting of loose rock slides. I cried a little bit half way up, clinging to a shrub, until I summoned enough courage to continue the rest of the way up to the base of the climb. There was no way I was going to down climb my way through all the loose rock. It took me almost 3 hours to pick my way through the loose rock field.

The climb itself had a lot of loose rocks. We were really careful not to knock any thing loose. The climbing felt tough for a 5.7 rating. Perhaps it was because we were all still rusty from the winter season.

I felt this would have been a really great alpine type climb. Each pitch had different characteristics, which kept it interesting. There was plenty of exposure up there, particularly on the "Pipe Pitch". However, with all the loose rocks on the approach and on the climb itself, it spooked the living day lights out of me, that I never really enjoyed the climb. The black flies that were eating us a live on the route did not help the cause. Once we made it up to the top, packed up our gear and heading down on a hiking trail, I was glad it was all over.

Perhaps, it was my inexperience with alpine style climbing, but I thought this route was pretty wild and spooky. All I did was prayed on the way up that nothing would slide and crush us. I did not want to have a 127 hours moment.

Note: Sorry everyone for lack of pictures. Somehow, between being spooked on the climb, and computer crashing, neither me or my climbing partners have pictures from this trip. My boyfriend decided that we should go back and redo the route for pictures. I'm not so sure about that....