Thoughts On The Old Man Of The Mountain
Last month the 700 tons of the various rocks and blocks that made up the Old Man Of The Mountain, the New Hampshire state symbol high up on the cliff of Cannon Mountain, fell, tumbled, and splattered into the talus 1000' below. In the time since, in various venues on the net, many folks have waxed poetic and posted their memories of things Old Man related. Lots have used the terms heartbreaking, tearful, a great loss, etc.
Bullshit!!!
It may be the contrarian view, but I'm not at all sorry to see it go. Having climbed many times on routes next to and under it, I was always pretty nervous about those tons of unstable loose blocks poised hundreds of feet over my head. My first route ever on Cannon, Lakeview, ended by climbing the corner on the left side of the Old Man. I remember thinking as I anchored to one of the turnbuckles "wtf is keeping this thing together?". Instead of trying to glue and bolt it together, the annual volunteers should have been dismantling it piece by gravity-taunted piece.
Good riddance.
Too bad some routes are probably heavily damaged if not outright obliterated.