The Eight-Mile Loop

Drizzle splashed on my cheeks and eyelashes as I jogged along the far side of an eight-mile loop behind our cabin in Madison, New Hampshire. A quickly thickening canopy of deciduous forest grew over the Class VI dirt road. I smiled, realizing that I felt no pain. That, and because I’d caught a glimpse of a shiny wet leather couch off to the side. It belonged there, an erratic, as if a glacier had played a practical joke.

My run-ins with chronic pain began in 2004, with an ankle injury from bouldering that I avoided proper treatment for. Nearly two years after the accident I finally had surgery, followed by a long recovery, and then promptly re-injured the same ankle when a hold broke while sport climbing in 2008. As I finally regained health in 2010, I came down with severe elbow tendonitis for 13 months (read my post from the throes of it here and if you are suffering from it go here for the guaranteed cure).

Now, in May 2011, encouraged by the security (and thus freedom) of marriage and the luxury of intentional underemployment, I am feeling especially lucky to have, and be able to take advantage of, full body health.

I know my ankle will not always be this way. My orthopedic surgeon, as he customized a pair of orthotics to help preserve the newly grown bone and what little cartilage is left in my right ankle, warned that I should carefully choose my running miles and long walks with heavy backpacks. He said his fix could last 1 year or 10 years, depending on how I treated it, and that I should keep my fingers crossed for better full ankle replacement technology in the meantime. So every mile I get to run without pain is a blessing, and every approach or descent with a 50+ pound pack is intentionally chosen.

I was on the 8-mile loop to prepare my body for the coming ‘Indian Summer’. I’ll meet my friends Emilie Drinkwater and Kirsten Kremer in Delhi, India, on July 3 and we’ll head north to the Eastern Indian Karakoram. Our main objective is an unnamed unclimbed 6,000 meter rock peak in the Saser Muztagh. Our secondary objective is to be nuisances to our trip leader Mark Richey (who will attempt a nearby peak with Steve Swenson and my husband Freddie), who says he hasn’t shared an expedition with women in more than 20 years because they ‘are trouble’.

My windshirt, now soaked with rain, stuck to my arms as I turned up Glines Hill Road, our local version of Heartbreak Hill, with a mile straight of steep climbing. Don’t Stop Believing by Journey came up in the workout mix, as if on cue. I’d never wandered beyond a 5-mile loop in our neighborhood, and even on this cruelly steep homestretch, I felt light, energized and thankful for health’s simple gift of an allowance to push one’s limits.

We are thrilled and honored to have received a Polartec Challenge Grant for the upcoming summer of fun and adventure. Thanks also to Mountain Hardwear, Petzl, Sterling Rope Company and La Sportiva for helping to make this dream a reality.

Newfoundland Adventure

It must be dark, cold January in New Hampshire, as I’ve found myself nostalgically recalling stories from a rock climbing trip to Newfoundland with Sarah Garlick and Kirsten Kremer in 2009.

The adventure started at friends Alycia and Timmy’s wedding on Cape Cod in late August. We picked up Kremer at Boston Logan airport the next morning, proceeded to New Hampshire to pack Sarah’s Previa minivan and continued on the 18 hour journey to ‘the island’. We had only a few weeks to play before Sarah’s wedding back in New Hampshire.

Once in Francois (pronounced France-way by locals, and only accessible by boat), we were essentially adopted by ‘the Georges’, George Durnford and George Fudge, and their families, who fed us food and information, gave us a ride to ‘Camp Paradise’ on the trusty Royal Oak, a beautiful cod fishing boat, and loaned us Rojito the red dingy and a few mismatched paddles to get around from our beach camp to various cliffs in Shaleur Bay.
The hospitality didn’t end there. They checked in on us regularly, offering a towline between climbs and camp on several occasions. George even gave us a lift across the bay one afternoon to drink sweet wine and munch freshly steamed mussels as the sun went down with a dozen other Francois-ans.



The day they came to pick us up to head home, there was a huge rack of antlers mounted on the front of Royal Oak. Moose hunting season had begun that day, so they’d spent the previous night camped out in the next bay over, succeeded in a kill at dawn, dragged it out, butchered it and loaded it up all before even picking us up that morning. We drank rum and cokes in celebration of our dual successes, and the Georges’ were received like heroes when they pulled into the Francois harbor with a boat full of women and meat.


The climbing? It was pretty good too. Check out the little video to see for yourself.

(Above photos by Kirsten, Sarah and me.)

Newfoundland: Wedding Sandwich Climbing Trip from janet bergman on Vimeo.

Some gear we used:

Mountain Hardwear Trango Tent

Mountain Hardwear Women’s Ultra Lamina Sleeping Bag

La Sportiva Women’s Katana

Sterling Marathon Ropes

Petzl Selena Harness

Sea to Summit dry bags and stuff sacks

Thanks to Joe Terrevechia and Karin Bates for photos and information that made the trip possible and to Jim Surette for being a patient husband-to-be while the girls went to play!

Roshambo, Newfoundland

Just home from an amazing trip to Newfoundland (that is pronounced by Canadians with an emphasis on the LAND part by the way). Here is a clip from our first day, a wicked game of roshambo between Sarah and Kirsten before heading up what was to become the Squid Cracks.


More soon on this fun adventure...