The Iceman Cometh...

I did the last of the big ice routes in the Ghost by climbing Hydrophobia a few weeks ago. It's a pretty awesome and sustained climb. It's steep the whole way and there isn't a ledge in sight. Glad to have done it... but really looking forward to getting back on its anemic friend to the right next year...



Hydrophobia (L) and Cryophobia (R)



Colin reaching the top of the first pitch.



Second pitch, second hanging ice belay.



Colin at the top of pitch 2.

Me climbing the first pitch.

Me on the final pitch.

Quick high steps... trying to keep the boots dry.

A rest day in Evan Thomas Creek... finding suprisingly solid plastic ice in 50 degree temps.

Play Misty for Me

This trip marked the beginning of my post-nursing school, post-NCLEX life. A short tune-up day at Haffer Creek prepared us for a week of spring ice climbing in the Canadian Rockies.



Colin takes flight.

A dangeous avalanche forcast forced Colin and myself to climb in more protected venues. As luck would have it we were the the only party on the Weeping Wall on a beautiful day. We managed to nab the both the lower and upper weeping wall climbing six 60-70m pitches of wi5-6 terrain. An awesome day to open up the spring trip.



The Weeping Wall



Colin somewhere on the Upper Weeping Wall.



Lower Weeping Wall.



About to punch it through 100ft of rotten ice.



Approaching the Upper Weeping Wall.

Second pitch of Upper Weeping Wall.

Dealing with slush and crazy cauliflowers on the final pitch of the Upper Weeping Wall.

Day 2 and the trip is already a success.

The Miracle on Snice

More fun times on I-Rock. We climbed an interesting line that worked itself into the left skylight (about 100 feet left of the Skylight Direct route). We found much more ice on the N Face than in December. There was a half-pitch of Wi4 snice to exit the face... pretty exciting. With all the rime and ice on the face there are many opportunities to steeper and possibly new lines on I-Rock. It's hard to say exactly what has been climbed on I-Rock, for all we know we established a new line. Regardless, I-Rock's N Face is an absolute playground with many 2-4 pitch mixed lines waiting to be climbed.



Me following the second pitch (climbing with two seconds is kinda fun!)

Dan leads first pitch. He had just knocked a microwave size rock loose, it practically rolled to Yocum Ridge!



Dan exiting the lie-back chimney section. It was pretty burly climbing, certainly hard M5.



Dan climbing the snice exit.



Colin starting up the first pitch.



Colin takes off on the second pitch.

Schwag

I had an opportunity to workout at my first crossfit gym this past summer in Peru. My friend Jaime had started Crossfit Peru after hearing about crossfit from another friend, Andy on our Peru trip a few years back. After running into Jaime in Huaraz we made plans for a guest visit at his gym in Lima for a few weeks from then. Getting directions from people on the street for a crossfit gym gets you even more weird looks than it would in the states. Eventually I found it... and Jaime's WOD slayed me. After six weeks of alpine climbing heavy power cleans left me sore for a week.

Anyhow, Jaime had a competition for getting weird reactions from people by doing burpees in strange spots.

So...



Winners get some Crossfit Peru t-shirts. So, these pictures are for Jaime:







My first 2K row... so brutal... so awesome. Thankfully I had the "Fight Club" soundtrack on my IPOD.

Drunk Little League Dads

Just when I thought nursing school couldn't throw me any more curveballs they hock a loogee and beam me with a four-seam fastball. Essentialy what should have been a rad five-day climbing trip ended up being a 2.5 day climbing trip with a lack of sleep and lot of stress on either side. Regardless Chad and I did get to climb a couple classics. But like any junkie, I just can't get enough.

It's been a rough year to be an ice climber in the NW. Which by NW standards means you might as well sell your gear and take up kayaking. Reason #576 of why I'm leaving the NW.



Chad topping out on Bourgeau Left



Overview of Bourgeau Left

Bourgeau is actually a pretty big climb with three rope stretching 70m pitches. After climbing it, I can see why it is many people's favorite Wi5 in the range. Also, due to its popularity I probably won't be on it again.





Roof on Suffer Machine

I couldn't let stable avalanche conditions pass me by without getting on something big. We decided to head to Nemesis but got scooped by Yamnuska. Fortunately I had the foresight to pack the rack as well. This gave us the option of getting on Suffer Machine instead. I have a habit of building up some climbs in my mind and they never seem to be as big and intimidating as I've imagined. That being said, Suffer Machine is pretty freaking cool, even if it is quite a bit tamer than I would have thought.



Suffer Machine starts on the right side of the ice and traverses in left just above the hanger. Teddy Bear's Picnic takes the direct line at just one grade harder.

Suffer Machine goes free at M7. Unfortunately the crux is missing three hangers and those that remain wouldn't do a fantastic job of preventing injury in the event of a fall. Even so, if you're solid at the grade I think the roof would be hard and heady but would go. After the roof the climbing is just fantastic. The ice had receded so that I needed to tension traverse and then gun it 40 ft. unprotected to the belay. After that its nothing but steep plastic ice.

Thankfully I have a post-NCLEX, post-nursing school Canadian Rockies trip coming up shortly. I'm hoping that six months of climbing and three expeditions can wipe away the memory of nursing school. Time to get out there and take some cuts.

The Times are Changing

The end of a one month vacation is coming painfully close... I'll be back at school at 7 a.m. Monday morning (p.s. WTF!?) and Marcus begins a 6-month 40 hour/week stint on Thursday. Things were definately going to change...

BJ, Marcus and I just took a quick trip out to Bozeman. Conditions were supposed to be great and it had been years since any of us had been to Hyalite Canyon. A little different experience with different climbs on the ticklist than in years' past. We had to deal with some bad avy conditions and the memories of a bad accident that happened a few weeks back. Despite this we got some good climbs in, even if none of them happened to be what we hoped to climb.

Day 1: Went to climb The Climb Above Dribbles... bad snow and a little confusion meant it was just a warm up day.

Day 2: Marcus nabs the last of the low lying fruit with Cleopatra's Needle.

Day 3: Bad snow aborts our attempt on the real prize, end up climbing Bobo Like and Killer Piller not to shabby for a check-down day.

Day 4: Dielectric Breakdown and I cut my teeth, literally, on some Bozeman mixed.

Not the housekeeper's best friends...

BJ getting his first lead of the season on Silken.



If you know BJ you shouldn't be suprised, it was only -15F when we left the car...



Marcus crossing Cleopatra's Needle off the ticklist. It was the only plastic ice in the valley...

Killer Piller.

Marcus trying not to throw stones on the glassy Dielectric Breakdown.

Iceahoy!

Weather cooled off just in time for some scrappy ice in the NE. After a disappointing first trip back east my ratio of suffering to climbing has been steadily improving. Got on 3 pitches the first trip then sent the Black Dike among a few other climbs during the second trip. This trip I climbed over 20 pitches and all but one day.
The climbs were just starting to come in, so we focused on scrappy routes at Smuggler's Notch. We ended up getting the seasons first ascents of classic routes like Poster Child and Ragnarock. After three days climbing in the notch and one pirate party induced rest day, we got on a couple routes at Lake Willoughby. Lake Willoughby is Vermont's answer to Canada. If you are going climbing in the NE go here!



Andrew is "The Poster Child" Wi4 M4



Scrappy conditions putting the "rock" in Ragnarock Wi4+ or M6



Approaching the birthing canal on ENT gully... so cold climbed with Das Parkas on.

Andrew following the mega-classic 20- Gully.

Float Like a Butterfly at Lake Willoughby: Vermont's answer to the Weeping Wall.

Teamwork: Usually I have a climbing partner that is a stick clip, this time I had to use my climbing partner as a stick clip.

Ice in the Gorge, me in Vermont

Rodney getting first sticks on Cape Horn Upper Tier Left.

I may have gotten the first pitch of ice in this year's Gorge freeze, but it wasn't the last. A lot of cool lines got climbed, including a couple I had my eye on. As per usual, the Gorge freeze (all 5-days of it) coincided with my trip to Vermont. Now that I'm back its raining at 8,000 ft., so that's great. I guess its time to go to the gym and dream about living someplace drier and colder next year.

Are You Ready to (I) Rock?

With a good weather forcast and no work until 615 on Thursday, I knew I needed to get up on Hood and get some climbing in. Everyone was busy that day. Thankfully, I got a hold of Colin and he was game to play hooky and go out. It was pretty much a perfect day with a full-moon, no wind, cold temps, and cloud-free sky. We made great time up to I-Saddle and were climbing by 8:30 a.m. after leaving the parking lot at 6 a.m.

I-Rock's east wall was completely bare. We had heard that stuff on the other side (NW?) was fun and not often climbed. With conditions on the front side, we really had no choice but to drop off I-Saddle and find something there. We picked the most obvious line/weakness on the face.

Our first belay was pretty marginal with a picket and two marginal pins. Mentally I was preparing myself for the entire climb to have poor protection. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. I found solid protection (including ice screws!) the entire way up the climb. There wasn't a lot of ice on route, but almost every tool placement was on ice with the occasional pick torque, edge, or hook. It was moderate, fun and in great shape. Honestly a top-5 alpine-mixed day all-time.



I had Colin take a picture of this screw just to prove we actually placed it.



Pitch 2. Awesome dihedrals that were ice up and actually a little burly. Thankfully perfect protection abounded.




Looking down the second pitch from the Skylight. There was a big 3/8" bolt just below this. Maybe this is Wayne Wallace's route North Skylight Direct (or something like that). There was a good #2 camalot-sized crack next to the bolt, but don't get me wrong, I clipped the bolt.

Colin pulling the final move into the Skylight. This actually wasn't a posed shot. The climbing was that good.

Thanksgiving Left-overs

This was our second trip to the Canadian Rockies in two-weeks. This November we've put enough miles on Marcus' rig that it needed a oil change and a tire rotation. At least we've knocked off the rust, got on some proud routes and came home ready for more.

Donnie and Sue met us in the parking lot at 5 a.m., and car-pooled with us into the Ghost. They were headed for This House of Sky and we attempting Cryophobia. If you have the right vehicle you can drive in via the Waiporous Creek and reach the climb in just 30 min. Without the requisite monster truck, you have to walk in via Johnson Lakes and the Ghost River Valley. Though the approach is straight-forward, it is 3 hrs long with 2.5 hrs of bushwacking. Remind me why I don't do something easier like skiing?

We finally rounded the ridge and saw this:



The Hydrophobia cirque is pretty incredible. I want to get back there either later this year or in the Spring for some plastic-ice climbing. Hydrophobia is the, ahem, obvious feature on the left. Cryphobia climbs rock that connects the discontinous ice features to the right. I took the first pitch which meant I would also get the crux. Marcus got the second pitch which meant he would climb two M7+ pitches.



Marcus gunning through the roof on the second pitch.



Yep, it is that good...

We didn't get the send, but we did get close to half-way up the route before pulling the plug. On the bright-side we know what areas need work. We have every intention of training hard and getting on this route again.

We didn't get back to Canmore until 9 p.m. After 6 hrs of walking (as well as some hard climbing) we didn't feel like waking up early again. We opted for the B-shift and started up for Guinness Gully + Stout at 11:30 a.m. It ended up being perfect timing as the party ahead of us was rapping the final-pitch as we started climbing it. We did something like 6 pitches of climbing in an easy afternoon that got us back in time for the end of Sunday Night Football.



Marcus on the first pitch of Guiness Gully.

Dancing Days are Hear Again...

...as the winter nights grow?

Marcus and I got an early jump on the ice season. Conditions were a little bit spartan up north, but there was more than enough ice for four days of climbing. More than anything we knocked some rust off, sized up some future objectives and readied ourselves for the Thanksgiving weekend send-fest (hopefully!).

Day 1: We knew Nemesis had been climbed within the last few days but knew WI6 was probably not going to workout for our first day out this year. We wanted something a little easier and settled on Spray Falls WI5. Spray Falls was on the to do list after getting shut down a few years ago on a late season attempt with Chad. It was in very steep, albeit easy condition this year. Went down smoothly but we could have done without the 4-hr wait at the base while a party of very slow Albertans.

Day 2: After hearing of deteriorating avy conditions and that Will Gadd bailed we had to skipped our attempt on Nemesis. Instead we headed to the Ghost where there are no avy worries, at least we thought. Chad and I had climbed the Sorcerer, our intended route, a few years back (pretty good trip now that I think about it, we climbed Carlsberg, Kitty Hawk, Sorcerer in one trip). A massive cornice had formed up this year. Added to that feature was heavy winds and snow deposition that seemed to be loading the cornice. Did I mention the spindrift falling down, and up the climb? Needless to say we bailed. Unfortunately a 2.5 hr drive and 1.5hr approach didn't leave us any time to get on something else.

Day 3: Murchison is another climb that was on my grudge list. BJ and I had been on it but bailed when a nearby cornice collapsed. Marcus and I thought we might link up Murchison with Mixed Master. At 8 a.m. we drove past Murchison with a car already parked. We decided to reverse the link-up and head to Mixed Master. Mixed Master is dry... really dry. I would not be surprised if it doesn't come in this year. We headed back to Murchison. Leaving the car at 10:30 we thought we wouldn't have to wait too long. Unfortunately some guys from British Columbia were setting an anti-speed record on Murchison (what is it with slow Canadian ice climbers?). At 12:00 they were only starting the first pitch. Desperate after being shut down the previous day we got on the unformed Virtual Reality WI6. We only climbed one pitch but it ended up being a 30m WI5 with techy ice. I hope those Canadian brought headlamps because they probably only reached the base by nightfall.

Day 4: As per usual we hit Hafner on the way home. We didn't send anything incredible.... just worked some mixed routes that are pretty boney in the early season.



The uber-slow Albertans on the crux of Spray Falls.



Marcus heading up a WI4 leading to the crux of WI4.



Me posing for a picture just below the crux of Spray Falls. Not that I'm right at a screw or anything...




Me learning something about techy ice on Virtual Reality.




What's a gronk? Marcus on the send...