Maidenhead (M7+ NEI5+)

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New and Adventurous Mixed Route at “The Lake”

Lake Willoughby Vermont
1-24-2020

Bayard and Peter have been busy with family life, and busy at the cliff. On Friday, after days of work they finished up a spectacular project. Maidenhead (M7+, NEI5+). Have a look at the photos below. They speak volumes about this monumental climb. Nice work!

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On 1/24/20 @cathedralmountainguides (Bayard Russell) and I, completed a new, adventurous mixed route at Lake Willoughby! Our line, “Maidenhead” (M7+,NEI5+ 165m) ascends from the base of Five Musketeers for about 20m before veering right, on positive features, to follow a diagonal weakness. A series of ramps and flakes angle toward a streaked headwall of good rock and obvious hanging ice. Gaining this upper ice feature is the technical crux, though there’s plenty of thoughtful movement below, and above. The last two pitches are each 30m—a surprising, scrappy pitch of thin ice over steps and slab at M5 leads to the final NEI5 columns and eventually the welcome security of the cedar trees on top. Rappel 130m to the reach the ground. We put in three days of work in the last 3 weeks to equip and send the route. I placed my first 3 bolts, ever (with direct supervision and mostly useful instruction from Bayard). We worked it on cold days covered in snow and were fortunate for a day of mild temps and mostly high overcast to send. Bayard was feeling the heat to wrap up this project. He confessed only 3 hours of decent sleep Thursday night for various reasons. Big picture, the Russell/Skidmore family is about to expand. So, sending last Friday was particularly good timing. I owe @missanneskids a debt of gratitude for turning him loose under the circumstances and, of course, @majkaburhardt for supporting the best adventure to date, this season! @outdoorresearch @petzl_official #ORambassador #mountainsenseguides @asolo.official

A post shared by Peter Doucette (@mountainsense) on

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