NORTHEAST NEWSWIRE LOCAL LEGEND PASSES AWAY, 23-PITCH ROUTE AT FARLEY, THREE M10’S
THREE M10’S, ONE DAY, NO BIG DEAL Last year, Nathan Kutcher won Ouray’s Ice Climbing Competition and competed in the Ice Climbing World Cup for Canada. This year, he has the North American Championships, the World Cup and an ice climbing cultural event for the Olympics to prepare for. He has been training all summer and he tested himself with an insane goal: to onsight three M10’s in a day. At 3 a.m. one morning, he drove to St. Albans and started ticking off routes. The first two fell smoothly, but on the third, an M10-, he popped a tool and nearly took a fall. Despite this hiccup, he sent anyways, handily achieving his goal.
[Photo] Mark Meschinelli
HARDCORE CLIMBER GEOFF SMITH PASSES AWAY AT 64 Geoff Smith, a prolific developer of Poke-O Moonshine, and a member of the Ski-toDie Club, passed away this November. Mark Meschinelli, who met Smith in the ‘70s when Smith was aggressively going after new routes, remembers him as a great guy. “His laugh was unbelievably infectious. If you met him, you would never forget him,” Meschinelli said. “He peppered you with questions about yourself, not him. That’s one of the things I loved about him—he always wanted to know what you were doing.” Smith discovered climbing as a teenager, and in the early ‘70s, he started developing Poke-O Moonshine. “He was always looking for the most unique lines, and he always wanted to experiment and push the boundaries,” Meschinelli added. “He was a great climbing partner.” Smith added over 30 routes to Poke-O, most of which went up in the ‘70s. One of them, Fastest Gun (5.10a), was one of the most iconic climbs of the era and is still one of the most coveted 5.10s in the state. With his climbing career slowing in the ‘80s, Smith eventually retired from climbing. However, he returned to Poke-O in 2002, establishing Ancient of Days (5.10b) with his two sons, Silas and Tim. Smith’s impact on Northeast climbing and skiing is immeasurable. He will be missed by many.
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climberism | MAGAZINE
THERE’S A 23-PITCH ROUTE IN MA. At the end of October, Pete Clark and Paul Handlen completed a 23 pitch, 5.11+ A2 traverse of Farley Ledge, dubbing it The King Snake: The Eternal Mystery. They had attempted the route in 2011, but hadn’t yet mastered the novelty of traversing. After 10 pitches of mayhem, bug infested sandwiches, and kicking steps in muddy corners, the team backed off the route, drinking the beers they had in defeat rather than celebration. This year, they were awarded the Live Your Dream Grant from the American Alpine Club, which helped put aid gear on their racks. With the extra gear, they completed the route just before Halloween.