Keene Railway Cut/Auburn Ice Canyon

Has anyone been to Keene Railway or Auburn ice canyon to ice climb recently and gotten a sense of conditions? Itching to get out of Boston and ice climb, but don't want to go all the way up to North conway this weekend!

Thanks :D 

Can't say anything directly about those 2 areas but some friends climbed at the Zoar roadcut in Charlemont, MA last weekend and reported good conditions. I'm figuring that if Zoar was good, Keene, and likely Auburn as well, should be too---and with the current cold snap should only have gotten better over the past week. Expect brittle ice, though.

I don’t have any photos unfortunately, but auburn is in good shape. Plenty of ice on multiple routes. The ground was not frozen all the way to the tunnel so that’ll make leading the longer routes over there a challenge, but those routes themselves are in good shape. 

Barely any ice in Keene, some of the usual routes are completely dry. Overall Keene has been dry since this past summer (people were rock climbing in there, when it’s normally a swamp). Not enough moisture to build ice. There’s some smaller flows, sure, but I’d think Auburn is faring better since it’s literally a drainage area with plenty of water.

There is a fair bit of ice in Keene right now. A few of the bolted routes make for fun mixes climbs too. I would imagine the ice will hold up relatively well even through next week since a lot of it doesn’t get sun and it will be cold at night

There is probably the least amount of ice in there in decades.

Yes there’s some to climb and hopefully will continue to build a bit, but I wouldn’t give people the wrong impression. It’s probably not worth a flock of people congregating over only a couple 10ft flows. The dry tooling is good, but most people are looking for the ice here that they won’t find and would be better served traveling elsewhere unless you’re local and itching for something.

In addition to the dry season leading up to this winter, there has also been significant changes to the forest above with trees cut down last year, increased erosion of the rock, soil, and moss, and I think that has affected things as well.

Christian Donkey wrote:

There is probably the least amount of ice in there in decades.

Yes there’s some to climb and hopefully will continue to build a bit, but I wouldn’t give people the wrong impression. It’s probably not worth a flock of people congregating over only a couple 10ft flows. The dry tooling is good, but most people are looking for the ice here that they won’t find and would be better served traveling elsewhere unless you’re local and itching for something.

In addition to the dry season leading up to this winter, there has also been significant changes to the forest above with trees cut down last year, increased erosion of the rock, soil, and moss, and I think that has affected things as well.

I haven’t been climbing here for 10 years so I guess you know better than I. I am from southern Vermont and our local ice has been lacking this year compared to previous years. I think it’s fair to blame the historically dry fall. I pretty much only turn left at the trail and climb the dry stuff when I come here the ice on those routes has been a fun bonus. I guess because of this I personally am never disappointed when I drive to climb here. 

There’s usually fun to be had here if you take it for what it is and are game for dry tooling. But the ice is limited currently and it looks nothing like the guide book photos if you go there expecting that this year.