So, havn't posted here in a while, Hello to all those who remember me. Anyway, just wanted to tell you all a story about my trip to cannon Cliff. So, we start out at the parking lot, couldn't find the trail and bushwacked about a mile through some serious woods until we found a path, that turned out to be the decent trail, after a while, we cut over to the talus field, where we proceded to climb/flop/walk through boulders for about 2 miles, It was hell, but we managed not to hurt ourselves until we got to the the climb where i pulled down a massive rock, that landed on my shin. Good thing I had my first aid kit, cause i wrapped it, and forgot about it. we climbed the origional start, and the next pitch, but bailed when our 2.5 hour approach caught up with us, and we didnt' have it in us for the pipe pitch. We got our asses kicked. Anyone venturing for the first time, beware, bring lots of water and determination, hellish walk/bushwack back too, but it was some amazing exposure right at the pipe platform (i made it that far), the most i have ever seen. Later!!

Hey llamaboy,

Sounds like you had a big fun day...

The "stealthy" approach beta for this climb:

Park in the southern parking lot, the one by the NH Sate campground. ( I think it's called, very creatively, Franconia Notch Campground.) It's a fairly short walk up a paved bike path to the climber's trail that leads up the talus slope. I think it's the SECOND obvious climbers trail. The first obvious trail is the decent route...

If you're doing any of the routes (Whitney/G's, Duet, Sam's Swan Song, etc) on the south end of Cannon, there's no need to park at Profile Lake.

The hike up the talus can be surreal in the pre-dawn light. Sometimes you're walking on softball sided rocks, and sometimes it's a boulders the size of a house...

A friend, John Frederick from NJ, and I try to do the route every year, as part of our " Ed and Fred's "Witless/Guilty Tour." (I'm witless...He's guilty.) Once while climbing the route, we ran into James Melhuish, a Kiwi who's now living in Boston. He grandfather was Hassler Whitney...

Our last trip took a less than 4 hours from car to car... It was in August. Cannon was in a dense, cold, grey cloud, The temperature never got above 40 degrees...the rest of NH was 70 degress and sunny...

ed e

Damn, i wish i new that last week when i did it


I tried to get on some of your routes up at Rumney ed, but weather changed my plans so i cut my day at rumney short to rest for cannon

Lllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaammmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Good to hear from you! Glad you're down in one piece.

I haven't posted in a long while myself. When I was up in NH last week, I found a copy of the new "Secrets of the Notch", by John Sykes. It has up to date Cannon info (after all the rock fall) including a nice bit on the approaches. The guide is well written, and includes some good route guide photos. The publisher of the book is Huntington Graphics www.letsclimb.com

Glad you are ok!