Updates
It’s spring and the rain has finally stopped (for now), which means it’s time for us to get out there and clean up some cliffs! Spring Cliff Cleanup and Stewardship day will be held on May 27th, mark your calendars! This year we will be focused primarily on picking up trash (there’s a lot to pick up) and making sure that climber approach trails are clear. We will work from 2:00pm - 5:00pm, and then celebrate the return of rock season with our usual BBQ/hang out from 5:00pm onward. BYO grillables and beverages. We will provide trash bags, and disposable gloves, but feel free to bring your own work gloves, hand saws, etc.
Aaaand one more…. @nickaiellopopeo writes: “You boys… ever been in a grizzly den?” Our pilot, Doug Brewer, wasn’t great at small talk. Accustomed to flying hunters and mining prospectors, Doug didn’t know what to make of mountain climbers. Doug recalled flying Fred Beckey and his team when they made the first (and only) ascent of Mt. Neacola in 1991. We met Doug at the Kenai municipal airport in 2019. He was resplendent in his camo jacket, dirty jeans, and unironic mullet. Doug’s bush plane - a 1953 DeHavilland Beaver - had two different colored wings. We didn’t dare ask why. More to come tonight at Ledge Brewing.
Just a little bit more to get you all psyched for this upcoming slideshow… When humans had last walked across the Lobster Claw glacier, Bill Clinton was still in his first term. In 2019, this tight, constricted valley became a temporary home for Ryan Driscoll, Justin Guarino, and Nick Aiello-Popeo. Their base camp receive only a few short hours of sunlight each day. After a little reconnaissance, a two-week blizzard confined them to their tents. The crack of distant serac-fall and the rumble of nearby avalanches were the only sounds that pierced the sheets of falling snow. The team was thankful not to be able to see the avalanches, as the storm prevented them from fleeing the valley - even if they wanted to… Come hear the rest of the tale on Friday March 3, at 6pm at Ledge Brewing in Intervale, NH.
Looking forward to the upcoming slideshow presentation with Ryan Driscoll on his ascent of the North face of Mt. Neacola? Here’s a little more on it to get you really excited! The frozen north face of Mt. Neacola rises four thousand feet from the glacier. Resting on the summit of The Citadel after establishing a new route, Ryan Driscoll stared in awe at the foreboding wall on the horizon. It’s dark energy pulled at him like the gravitational force of a black hole. Research would reveal that the face had been attempted just once, in 1995, by Topher Donahue and Kennan Harvey. Melding big wall tactics with the merging art of mixed climbing, Donahue and Harvey climbed three quarters of the wall before retreating in a storm. Just a few weeks after Driscoll glimpsed the face in 2019, he would make his first of several attempts with Justin Guarino and Nick Aiello-Popeo. Come support our bolt replacement efforts, and hear the whole story on Friday, March 3 at 6pm @ledgebrew in Intervale, NH.
Hello! We are psyched to see you all at @mwv_icefest tomorrow! Look for our table at @ledgebrew and come say hi! This year in addition to enjoying the fun of Ice Fest and hanging out with all of you, we will also be hosting a 50/50 raffle to help us raise money for our ongoing bolt replacement initiative. This means 50 percent of the money generated by the raffle goes to FOTL, allowing us to keep the hardware in your beloved cliffs updated and safe, and 50 percent goes to the lucky winner, so the more folks entering, the merrier - and it’s really a win-win for everyone! Plus we’d love for you to simply stop by and say hi. We’re always happy to chat about climbing, cliff stewardship, what we’re up to, what you’re up to, whatever really! * Photo not reflective of current Black Dike conditions.
We're trying this again! The north face of Alaska's Mt. Neacola was one of the continent's tallest unclimbed walls. It took three expeditions and several brushes with disaster for North Conway climbers Ryan Driscoll, Justin Guarino, and Nick Aiello-Popeo to scale the face. Come hear the palmsweating stories while supporting local climbing advocacy and conservation on Friday, March 3, at 6PM at Ledge Brewing.
We're almost one week away from The Sanctity of Space screening on 10/28 at 6:30 p.m. There will be epic storytelling, beautiful images, and accounts from one of the filmmakers. If that's not enticing enough, we'll have a huge raffle table including items from Black Diamond, Eastern Mountain Sports, Ragged Mountain Equipment, Salt Pump Climbing Gym, Synnott Mountain Guides, International Mountain Equipment, Stay Wild, Molly Mundy Art, and Old Village Bakery. I'm serious- we needed to buy a bigger table just to hold all of these goodies. Don't miss out! Information and Tickets can be found in the link in our bio.
Very exciting event coming up! Come join us for a screening of The Sanctity of Space with filmmaker @freddiewilkinson, to help us with our Bolt Replacement Initiative. This screening with take place at the Leura Hill Eastman Performing Arts Center, in Fryeburg. Doors open at 6pm, movie starts at 6:30pm. Follow the link in our bio to purchase tickets. Can’t wait to see you there!
Mark your calendars! Friends of the Ledges will be holding a public meeting on October 5th, at 6:00pm, upstairs at IME. We want this community to be aware of the topics we’ve been discussing and working on and to have the opportunity to offer input. YOU are invited! Looking forward to seeing you there.
We can’t give a huge enough thank you to everyone who showed up to help with the trail project on The Boulder Loop trail. The Forest Service crew was so impressed with the work, energy, and general enthusiasm of this group. Deanna, one of our fearless Forest Service trail crew leaders shared this photo - no one is going down the old trail! Thank you all and big thanks to @heyflashfoxy
Hi there! Exciting news! Friends of the Ledges has been working with @heyflashfoxy to organize a stewardship project as part of their Fall Fest! (Definitely check them out to learn more about the event). The project will run from 9:30am to 12:00pm on Sunday September 11th, and is open to everyone. We’ll be helping the Forest Service trail crew with some ongoing work on the Boulder Loop trail (sometimes known as the Sundown approach). Since this project is a part of the Flash Foxy festival we will be meeting at Theater on the Wood at 9:00am. You can choose to meet us there or at the Boulder Loop parking lot at 9:30. Flash Foxy will be hosting a Recreating Responsibly on Indigenous Lands workshop at Theater in the Wood directly before the project. The workshop starts at 8:00am, and is also free and open to the public. We’d love to see you at both of these events on Sunday! If you’re definitely interested in joining the Boulder loop Trail project, it would be great if you could send us a quick “I’ll be there” message. We’ve never been a part of such a big trail project before and it would be helpful to get an idea of numbers. We will also be sending folks out with trash bags and gloves for some trash cleanup at high use areas, so if trail work isn’t your thing, or you’ve got time constraints we’d definitely still value your help with that! 📷 by @joshlaskin of @monkeyhouse221 on Confederacy of Dunces.