Hot Off The Press

  • 24th November 2009
  • Blog


This past spring I received a phone call from Jim Shimberg. Jim is one of the nicest New England climbers I know- he is always the most psyched and most humble. Hopefully you’ll get a chance to meet him and you will instantly see what I mean. But he called me up and it went something like this. “Hey, Annie! Yeah, yeah- we were talking and we thought it would be really cool to have Ted Hammond on the cover- yeah you know a piece of history on the cover. Not of this ol’ fossil, but of Ted- do you think you could do that?” Now, I may have opted to put a hot crankin’ babe on the cover, which is a guidebook ritual in the climbing world. But, this was a classy and classic request. Additionally, I was psyched to meet Ted and also get some pictures of him too. It seemed fitting to get him on one of the most well renown routes in Rumney, and also a route he FA’d some years ago. Now, Ted is a busy man, as we all are- and he had 3 hours of time to shoot this one afternoon. There is a quick window of when the light hits Flyin’ Hawaiian just right in the afternoon, and we nailed it. A big shout out to all those who have been working on the new guide book (Bob, Daphne, Ward, Shimberg, and others!). Self publishing isn’t an easy task to take on- thanks guys! Shouldn’t we start working on the next one now? 😉