My partner for this climb was Radu Raduta, a ME master's student at MIT who I met through the outing club. After leaving Cambridge at 6AM, we arrived at Franconia notch just around 8:30 and proceeded to pack up for the climb, apprehensive about the cold. The low the night before had been 24 degrees, so there was still frost on all the plants.
Our first look at the spectacular Cannon Cliff. The route we planned on climbing was the Whitney-Gilman Ridge (5.7), the first route of ascent on the cliff and one of the most classic moderate climbs in the Northeast. It is the prominent ridge on the far south end of the cliff (left-hand side of the photo); we climbed directly on the line between share and sunlight. In the corner is an ice route called the Black Dike (NEI 4+).
A closer look at the climb, a beautiful, knife-edge arete with exposure on both sides.
The view down the valley (south along I-93) was stunning even from the bottom of the climb.
Radu at the base of the climb; the talus field below the cliff was new to him. As we were in the parking lot, there was a large rockfall in the black dike area, giving us all-too-graphic evidence of the origin of the talus field.
Radu pulling up into the first belay ledge. We did a variation on the climb, starting in a 5.7 corner and working our way up to a huge, beautiful ledge.
Self-portrait.
The party above us was two climbers from Vermont. Here, one of them leads pitch four (pitch three, the pipe pitch--there's a pipe that someone hammered into the rock along the way--was so much fun that I forgot to take pictures).
Willie K. shared a belay ledge with me after the third pitch.
Willie was kind enough to take a photo of me (every photo of me that isn't taken at arm's length was shot by him).
Radu was glad to get to the third belay; the pipe pitch was tough with a pack on.
The view down the valley got even more spectacular as we climbed further.
I linked the fourth and fifth pitches into one 200' pitch with incredible exposure. I had to stop at this particular spot to take a picture of my foot on a knife-edge arete, Radu in the upper right around 100' below.
Radu zoomed in from that position, comfy on a spacious ledge.
Radu pulls onto the top of the climb (action sequence).
And Willie obliges me by taking a couple of pictures at the top.
The rest of Cannon stretches out to the north of the route, imposing and blank. The day was as spectacular as I've seen in New England, clear blue skies and beautiful leaves.
Directly across the Black Dike was amazingly textured rock, vertical but sprouting with vegetation.
Nearly the entire cliff to our right looked like this; I love the disorientation of the angle in this photo.
Willie and his partner packing up on top.
Self-portrait with berries.
Radu celebrates a beautiful route well done. The Whitney-Gilman is really one of the best climbs I've done recently in terms of the shear variety and interest of the climbing.
The woods atop the cliff were beautiful also, although the descent shreded my knees with about 2000' of steep roots, trees, leaves, moss, and pine needles.
Fin.