An Ice Carnival and a Fleece Jacket

I not too recently attended the Ice Carnival organized by College Outside, VICE and Cathedral Mountain Guides. It was awesome. I've never been ice climbing before so it was really just awesome being able to participate in the first ever Ice Carnival.

We left for New Hampshire right after I got out of a lab I was running for the class I was tutoring. On the way up, we stopped by a gas station and I had to stop my self from stocking up on chocolate milk for the weekend. Shortly after drinking half of a less than I pint sized bottle, I had to ask that we stop at another gas station so I could go to bathroom again. Then I had to force myself not to buy an additional chocolate milk for the next morning. I really like chocolate milk. Being in a car 3/4 filled with almost vegetarians and a vegan we decided to stop by 99. Luckily, they had a vegetarian sandwich and we ate all of their popcorn.

When we got to the lodge, it was pretty impressive. We're already trying to figure out how we can stay there for some of our trips. Why freeze in a tent when you can stay warm at night and get a good night's sleep so that you can send everything the next day? Though we did try to help put up a huge tent. Also as a college student, I've got to admit that my kit is no where near where it needs to be to get to through a winter night and actually sleep, so getting to sleep in a lodge where the temperature was set 15 degrees higher than my college student apartment was amazing. A lot of the groups were still coming in, so we hung out for a while and explored. That night we made almost 200 PB&J sandwiches and I got flashbacks to my sandwich artist days at subway. It was a beautiful organized assembly line. That night we also fitted gear that we'd need for the next day. I was lucky enough to get to wear these amazing La Sportiva boots.

We had to wake up early the next day. That night I had woken up to the sounds of a Clif Bar wrapper being opened. Ian had had too much coffee the night before, couldn't sleep and woke up hungry. I don't know if anyone else woke up to the sounds of the wrapper, but I think I did because I was a little bit hungry too. I probably got enough sleep, but I'm not a morning person during the winter. We had delicious bagels which I was too lazy to properly prepare and hot cocoa. Then the sponsors brought their demo gear for us to borrow. I borrowed a pair of outdoor research gloves. They were pretty good and did the job, but a men's extra small seemed to be too large for my tiny hands. I got to borrow Janet Wilkinson's belay parka which is sized large. I always felt bad about buying really big clothes, but the jacket was so warm and you kind of have to have a large jacket if you want it to fit over the puffy that you are already wearing.

The girls group I was in kicked butt. I think it was everyone's first time, but we had a great time. I definitely found myself overgripping the ice tools -
- it's hard not to on your first time. We got to climb a bunch and then Janet took the time to show us how to put ice tools in. It's really cool how that works and it was oddly thrilling to watch the ice shavings pop out through the center. It's like, "look how much progress you're making screwing this in!" On the last route I ripped my pants with the crampons, which must mean I was trying pretty hard. I finally got to sew them back together and thanks to my awesome sewing skills it now looks like I ripped them and poorly sewed them up.

When we got back, I was super hungry and pretty tired. There was pizza and beer, but since I haven't yet acquired a taste for beer, I had hot cocoa again. It was delicious and piping hot. Oh my goodness, the pizza was amazing. It had mushrooms on it. I love mushrooms. I'm not so convincing on that one, but it was really good, I promise. We actually almost stopped at that pizza place on the way up.

Later there was a raffle and a clap push-up competition. WPI was well represented by Jesse who pretty much destroyed everyone else. Ian was convinced he would do really well and he did, but he had also previously convinced me that he is not a huge fan of push ups. In the raffle, I won an awesome jacket. It is a a beautiful Patagonia Women's R2 jacket. It's so fuzzy, so, so fuzzy! It is amazing and I wear it all the time. The only problem is that people keep petting me. It's kind of hilarious and weird at the same time. I've also offered to have people pet my arms. People have stood around petting my arms for minutes at a time. Everyone got to win something in the raffle which was really cool. It was great to have all these sponsors remind us that they actually care about college students and know that we do want to buy their stuff, we just don't always have the money. Also winning things is nice.

We got to see some awesome presentations and it was an awesome time. Plus, I got load of stickers to add to my collection. I hope I can go next year and I hope more of my friends can come and get into ice climbing. Even though it was during the weekend before finals week it was such an amazing experience and I got to come but refreshed and pumped for the last few days of the term.