The Ides of March

March 15: The days are longer and the sun is stronger. The big question this time of year on the sunny days is whether to go rock climbing or into the mountains. Yesterday, the snow slogging won. I skinned up to the Hermit Lake Shelters to pick up Sarah, who is cooking for a film crew this week, and we headed over to Huntington Ravine to climb Odell's gully. It was a bit hairy with some weird wind slab snow in places, but nonetheless a fun day, as they always seem to be with her.

Gear for a splitter spring day on Mt Washington:
Mountain Hardwear Chockstone Jacket
Polartec Test Jacket
La Sportiva Spantik Boot
Petzl Selena Harness
Sterling Marathon Half Rope

New Tricks

My friend Mark has been on a major climbing expedition for 18 of the past 20 summers.

He and his savvy wife Teresa also own a hugely successful and highly respected custom woodworking business in Massachusetts that they built from scratch. The high value they place on travel means that the business has always been able to run with or without them (One of their great adventures was pulling their teenage daughter out of school for a year to tour Teresa’s home country of Peru in a Range Rover). I dig their style; living ‘outside the box’, always accepting of risk, and having a ton of fun along the way, and I consider them among my strongest role models.

I will be lucky enough to share base camp with Mark this summer in India, and my husband Freddie will be one of his climbing partners, so we’ve all been training together when possible.

Freddie and Mark spent the night in Huntington Ravine on Mount Washington in January to test some gear, and Freddie suggested they use alpine touring skis for the approach and descent instead of hiking (an alpine touring set up has special bindings that allow one to wear mountaineering boots or ski boots, and can be set to hinge on the toe like a cross country ski for climbing).

“You really think it will be faster to ski?” Mark asked Freddie.

Freddie said he should have known that Mark hadn’t been skiing much when he asked that question. Their descent did take about as long as hiking would have, as Mark was slow and took several falls.

This past weekend the three of us went to Mount Washington again and decided to again use touring skis. Mark, who’d spent 20+ years religiously hiking the Tuckerman trail to approach winter climbs on Mount Washington to train for his expeditions, was fully converted. He’d only used skis since that day with Freddie.

We had a blast climbing Huntington Ravine and on to the summit in whiteout conditions, but when we got back down to our skis it was my turn to be nervous about skiing in mountaineering boots. I’d only recently switched to an alpine touring set up from telemark, and was still feeling claustrophobic about having my heels locked down. Picturing a torn ACL or worse, I told them I was content to leave my skins on and glide slowly down, or even carry my skis if necessary.

“You really should just try it,” urged Mark. “It is a great opportunity since you have a light pack and the snow is in good condition…and it will be fun!” he said over his shoulder as he slid off.

‘Great opportunity’, I grumbled to myself.

I realized there were two ways to think of it: 1) I’d had a great day and could leave it on a good note or 2) Why not allow the possibility for a great day to end even better, and learn something along the way?

I peeled the skins off, locked the heels down and went for it, and that day Mark passed the ‘most recent convert’ status on to me. He also proved, once again, how to be a role model.

Photos by Freddie Wilkinson

Gear for climbing Mount Washington:

• Mountain Hardwear Test DryQ Jacket
• Mountain Hardwear Via Rapida Backpack
• La Sportiva Spantik Boots - all three of us!
• Polartec Test Vest
• Petzl Vasak Crampons
• Sterling Marathon Half Rope

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!

Baby Waiting, Lebron Hating and Climbing Training

I have been here in my old stomping grounds of Chagrin Falls, Ohio the past 10 days, waiting for my little sister to deliver her first bundle of joy into the world. This is the longest I have spent here in recent years, so it has been fun to settle in for a spell.

Our extended family put on an ‘Original Thanksgiving’ last week, which we do every five or so years. We dressed up like pilgrims and Indians and cooked a feast with only ingredients, implements and cooking methods from the 1600's. My New England Indian, Freddie, kept sneaking inside to watch the Patriots game, but this was his second time participating in the ‘OG TG’ and he is an incredibly good sport about my family’s shenanigans.

I can’t help but get caught up in Cleveland sports each time I am here and this week has been no different. I went downtown with my dad to see the Cavs-Celtics game on Tuesday, and with my mom to the local bar to see the Cavs battle Cleveland's most recent heart breaker, Lebron James, and the Heat on Thursday. What would we do without the villains and heroes of pro sports?

So between the pheasant stew, boiled lobsters, baby-anticipating and Lebron-hating, I have been trying to stay active for the pending ice climbing season in New Hampshire.

Lucky for me a gym ($5 per drop-in visit!) and a yoga studio popped up across the street from my mom’s house in the past year, as did a protected park with a 3-mile loop trail through woods and fields.

I have never in my life been on a regular gym workout program, nor do I claim to be at a level of fitness that would make it acceptable for me to tell others how to work out. But I thought I would share a few exercises I’ve been using to target areas in which I am typically weak at the start of the winter season.

My current workout recipe is to start with 45-60 minutes of cardio, and then cycle through moderate reps of 10 or so different exercises focusing on pulling, pushing, abs and legs for 30-45 minutes. I am still dealing with elbow tendonitis, so I work in a lot of arm stretching too.

A few exercises I’ve found for winter-specific strength building:

• Abs (with footwork and figure-fouring in mind): Leg raises on the pull up bar. I try to bring my feet as least 12 inches above my head, which requires curling the whole back instead of just the lower abs. I can only do about 10 of these at a time. Too easy? Go slower!
• Pulling (with lateral mixed climbing moves in mind): On a pull up assist machine, set up 80%+ of body weight assistance. Start with arms at the widest possible stance and alternate pulling up and lowering with one arm only (leaving the other hand in place but just loosening grip so it is not engaged). I always feel like I am going to pull my shoulder out of socket at the beginning of winter when making lateral dry tooling moves, so this feels like it is helping to strengthen that wide pulling action.
• Legs: Jumping telemark turns, jump roping and box jumps. All pretty self explanatory, I do 20-30 reps of each between the upper body exercises to build strength and keep the heart rate up.
• Stretches: The best stretch I have found for medial elbow tendonitis was suggested by my friend Jay Conway. Stretch the arm straight out to a wall, hand flat, thumb up and turn away until feeling a stretch. To intensify it, move your ear towards the opposite shoulder. When I first started to do this I could barely move my head. It feels incredible. Another stretch: Hold a resistance band straight in front of the shoulders, standing up. Move arms all the way outward at shoulder height, keeping them straight. I feel a sort of stretch/strengthening in the sub-scapular muscles with this one, an area I have trouble targeting. I know a few friends who keep a band in their climbing packs and do this exercise before and after climbing, always. I am trying to be like them, if only I didn’t get too excited about about climbing and forget every time I go out.

Workout gear:

Mountain Hardwear super power tights

Mountain Hardwear wicked lite tee

La Sportiva fireblades

Workout tunes: Los Sugar Kings (listen for the clave!)

OK, enough working out, we are ready for that baby anytime, Bobbi!

(Images from the uber classic Red Pillar of Mermoz, Argentine Patagonia, with Kirsten Kremer in 2008)

Italy, Canada and Salsa

A short list of observations from a few weeks of travel in September and October:
1) If you find yourself in a mountain hut in Italy singing karaoke, just go with it. My host for the first few days of my fall climbing trip was Jean Luca Cavalli, who I like to think of as the Italian version of Doug Madara (a remarkably motivated middle aged climber who gets out more days, and is stronger than, most climbers half his age). Jean Luca didn't speak much English, nor I Italian, so our interactions were often full of comical misunderstandings.
On the drive home from three days straight of climbing, as it got dark and my stomach grumbled for dinner, he said:
"I think maybe we go to the mountains tonight. There is a refugio and it is a guide's holiday there so it will be fun."
It was the last thing I wanted at that moment, since I had been thoroughly enjoying the company of Jean Luca, his wife and his teenage daughter while they hosted me and Peter William the South African at their home near Milan. But I was the guest after all, so I said okay. We agreed to take 20 minutes to pack our things while his wife Antonella brewed us espresso and told us we were crazy. We hit the road and an hour later we were hiking toward Refugio Pontese in the rainy darkness.

I still wasn't sure if I would eat dinner until we caught sight of the warm light spilling out the windows of the old hut after 45 minutes on the trail. Of course a hot, delicious, home cooked meal of rabbit, rice, bread and salad was on the table for us within 5 minutes of arriving. The building was full of Italian climbing guides on their night off. As we finished dinner, four of them started to play music and sing. It started with Italian folk music, and quickly evolved (devolved?) into corny American karaoke. As soon as they learned I was American I was placed right in the middle of them to help with lyrics to Bob Dylan, the Bee-Gees, Janis Joplin and more. Here is a short clip from when it was still tame early in the night.

Refugio Pontese from janet bergman on Vimeo.

Needless to say I went to bed way too late, Jean Luca woke me up at 5:30 am for a three hour approach to a rock climb, and I was only worth about 2 pitches once we got there. Such good times though.
Some images from our adventure the next day on Becco Meridionale della Tribolazione, aka Tribulation (3360m):



2) Italian Rock Is Not Limited To Karaoke And Limestone. None of my friends had heard of Valle Dell'Orco before, but a little research revealed splitter granite so I couldn't resist applying to represent the American Alpine Club for the Italian International Trad Meet.
Jean Luca, Peter William and I drove straight from the Refugio Pontese trailhead to the tiny village of Ceresole for the meet. 18 countries were represented and we had five days of amazing weather, perfect climbing, incredible Italian hospitality and so many fun memories. I had never heard so many ways to say 'on' and 'off' belay before!
Maurizio Oviglia's new English language guidebook to the Orco Valley was released while we were there and it is excellent. I am sure this place will be seeing a lot more traffic now.
A little historical tidbit: The two main cliffs there are called Caporal and Sargent, after Yosemite's El Capitan. The local Italian climbers were inspired by Royal Robbins and friends to learn crack climbing in the late '70's, and these are the cliffs that they practiced on!

3) I like helicopters. I am not allowed to say much more than that. But I was super lucky to participate in a photo shoot for a top secret ad campaign in western Canada on the way home from Italy. The four day shoot involved gondola and helicopter rides, make up artist, stylist and a whole film and photography crew. I kept getting referred to as 'the talent'. Ha!

4) Dancing salsa and merengue is as much fun as climbing! I came home just in time to attend Kismet Rock Foundation's Latin dance-themed annual fund-raising event this past weekend. Boston-based Los Sugar Kings rocked the house once again, showing everyone step by step how to move alone and with a partner. Finding rhythm in a new dance step is indescribably fun. Even my mom said she liked it! Check out this great photo blog post by Anne Skidmore from the event.

What was in my bags for the Italy - Canada linkup?
Mountain Hardwear Superscrambler Backpack: Simply designed, ultralight and surprisingly durable.
La Sportiva Miura VS: Precision. Nuff said. And I was not the only one - dozens of other people from around the world were pulling these shoes on to make their best attempt's at Valle Orco's testy discontinuous crack systems and steep face climbs.
Sterling Fusion Ion2 Rope: The newly designed Ion2 is built to last. Big difference in this rope from the first generation!
Polartec test jacket
Petzl Reverso: Everyone was using double ropes there!