3.2 miles 900' Elevation gain

Kevin, Judy and Emma

2001 This is the winter I decide I love the mountains too much to go all winter without climbing any. Deciding to start out “small”Jude, Emma and I spend my b-day at the Bartlett Inn and make this climb of Mount Willard on the trip. It's a pretty easy climb , even in the snow, and of course we had it to ourselves. This is a good mountain to gauge winter climbing ability on because it is easy to bail out and get back to safety. We enjoyed it even without clear views. Later in February Bob F. and I tackle Chocorua again. Although this didn’t go particularly well, we decided to move on to something a little more challenging in Lafayette the next weekend. I was repeating, but obviously I didn’t care, as I repeated it again two months later with Jude and Emma. It was a repeat for Jude, too, but it was Emma’s first time, and it continues the trend toward being serious about her getting her four thousnd footer status, and finally firmed up Jude’s conviction to finish. I felt finishing this year would be a snap, as the year progressed, it turned out the only thing I was right about was the ”snap”, as I’ll talk about later. It was a great year for climbing, even taking a trip completely out of any known territory to climb the highest peak east of the Mississippi, Mount Mitchell in North Carolina.