St o r y a n d ph o t o s by Lisa D en sm o r e
Rites of Spring in Tuckerman
Ravine
E x t r e m e s k i i n g , Ne w H a m p s h i r e s t y l e
I
t was a fair day in mid May 1980, my freshman year at Dartmouth College. After four hours of climbing, I finally crested the lip of the famous headwall in Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington. My heart beat wildly in small part from the exertion, but mostly from adrenaline. For the last hour, I had climbed up a wall of snow so steep that my nose nearly touched it as I meticulously placed one foot higher than the other. As I calmed myself to prepare for my run, a self-assured senior among our undergraduate troop of five confidently announced, “Lesson number one on skiing Tuckerman Ravine: DON’T FALL!” }
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