Ice Ice Baby

Remember this? This was February 2011, exactly one year ago, when a bunch of my friends and I went snowshoeing in the White Mountains.. here we are, gazing up at some ice climbers in the Flume Gorge, thinking, "Wow, those guys are so bad-ass..."

 Now look who's bad-ass:

This is our group of ice climbers. Lukas and I are the only ones from last year's hike that made it back for this, but still, it felt the fulfillment of a dream. We saw it, and we knew we wanted to learn to do that. And today it became a reality.

 This is our spot up on the cliffs in the Lost River Valley area of the White Mountain National forest. Beautiful curtains of ice hanging over the rocks.

Will Moik had an SLR, so I'm sure he has better pictures... but here are few just for teasers, until I get my hands on the other photos.

And that's me again, coming to the first ledge of the the slab that Mr. Thalheimer (our guide) dubbed The Finisher since after this climb we'd be too exhausted to climb anymore for the day. Definitely an appropriate name!

What a great day, though! And with so many great people! Thanks to Lukas and Mika for organizing such an awesome trip!