My brother Daniel, and our friends Jason and Dan joined us for a 3 day private training weekend of crampon, ice-axe, and other general mountaineering and ice climbing skills taught to us by Matt Shove at Ragged Mountain Guides of Hartford, Connecticut. Using North Conway, New Hampshire as our base of operations, we had an incredible time learning from Matt and his fellow guide Nate about the perils and thrills of winter ice-climbing and mountaineering.
I won't try to detail the day to day as Matt Shove has already done that extremely well on his website. If you would like a detailed account of what an amazing weekend of learning from a professional instructor can be like - please visit Matt's account of our trip HERE. Needless to say all of us had an incredible time, learned an amazing amount in a short time, and are excited to plan a 2.0 trip in the future to expand upon our learning and incredible experiences in this trip. From a comprehensive pre-trip gear list, to crampon techniques, climbing, ropes, knots, gear, safety considerations, winter exposures, things to think about when planning a climbing or mountaineering route, and general ways to have more fun and be more aware, Matt truly gave us a weekend to remember!
As photographs are the quick storybook, a short slideshow can be seen below: