2023/2024 Ice Season

Canmore, Canada

Day 32 - TBD

Day 31 - TBD

Day 30 - TBD

Day 29 - TBD

Day 28 - Shades of Beauty, Icefields Parkway near Jasper

Days 26 and 27 - Mixed climbing clinic

Day 25 - Anorexia Nervosa in the Ghost Wilderness Area

The Ghost Wilderness Area has some cool climbs. Hydrophobia being one that I’d love to tackle one day. The Real Big Drip also looks fantastic, but may be out of range of my current strength and stamina at a hard WI6 rating. The Real Big Drip is also huge and when it’s in condition, you can see it from miles away on the approach into the valley.

Another thing to know is that the Ghost Wilderness Area is a wilderness area. Meaning the roads aren’t paved. So the biggest question is whether cars can get in and out. The north side has several stream/river crossings, which can include ice ledges and your axles freezing up after taking a dip in the water. It’s not uncommon to get stuck in snowdrifts and require someone with a towing setup to help get you out. Which is why it’s also recommended to drive in with a high clearance vehicle - so you don’t rip out the bottom of your car on snow, ice, and/or tree stumps.

Apparently the driving conditions were “as good as it gets” the day that we drove in to climb Anorexia Nervosa, a 425 foot, 2-3 pitch, WI4 climb. Meaning my hybrid RAV4 could likely make it in and out. I also have what I shall dub, very good snow tires (Michelin X-ice), based on how the car performed wallowing through snow and ice. I didn’t get stuck. The car is in one piece. But we did drive convoy style, with Paul’s high clearance vehicle (with towing gear) in the lead in and out.

We drove about an hour on paved roads from Canmore. Then another hour on unpaved roads to reach the parking spot. Then we hiked an hour to the back of the valley to gear up and climb.

Anorexia Nervosa was as advertised with a thin first pitch. I’d say that the ice took a beating from the early season traffic, the cold snap, then extended warm snap. The ice was sublimated, brittle, and pretty shitty, to be honest. When I say shitty, you’d swing and it’d break off and expose rock. Meaning you had less ice to climb. It had also sublimated off the rock on the left side, leaving a big and useless gap for ice tools. It felt more like a funky mixed climb with weird body positions, flagging on rock, and using crampons on rock in a few places. The second pitch was more straightforward. Although the ice was also dry and brittle. There were definitely spots where I thought I’d get a nice stick with my swing. Instead, I’d hear that sound that’s so specific to a big and deep dinner plate of ice that’ll drop off. When I say big and deep dinner plate of ice, these are chunks of ice big enough to make me worry about dropping on my feet and knocking my feet off the ice. Paul’s toe bail on his right crampon also broke, but he had his repair kit and he did a pretty fast fix after securing himself on an ice screw in the middle of the ice. The third pitch was actually way funkier than I thought. From the belay stance, we had to scoot back out onto the face of the ice. Except the side closest to the anchor looked like shit styrofoam ice that you avoid putting an ice screw in for protection. Paul had to swing to the center to throw in ice screws. Except it was weird and featured and somehow I found myself in a less than ideal slightly overhung position to take the first ice screw out when I headed up. At least I had the presence of mind to realize that my body position sucked and that it was just for that part of the climb, so I didn’t stress too much. There were some weird hooks and brittle ice. And then there was a thick layer of shell ice over air on the left. I would definitely not try leading this climb at my current experience level. However, it was a fun climb. The main thing I’ve come to learn about ice climbing is that the ice is never what you expect it to be.

Day 24 - Multipitch lead climbing refresher at Junkyard

I’m at the point where I can confidently lead WI3 and some softer WI4 pitches. But the knowledge acquisition never stops and I always find it beneficial to do a refresher on multipitch leading during the season. For example, after Tracy and I climbed Louise Falls, I realized that we should have used a fixed point lead belay for her egress from the cave, considering where I had placed the anchor in relation to where she was climbing. A good reminder.

At this point it’s more about systems and remembering them and putting them into practice. I also need to remember that if I get pumped or scared on lead, I can take a rest on a tool or an ice screw (preferable). There was also some discussion of fall forces on gear, ropes, and lowering systems that I’ve seen, but haven’t used. It’s still a lot to remember, but it’s getting better.

Patrick (from Ridgeline Guiding) and I met at Beamer’s Coffee to review the curriculum and highlight areas where I felt like I was less familiar with the topic. Then we headed out to Junkyard, close to town, to get into the nitty gritty. A fun learning day and it felt less overwhelming than in the past. It really does start to come together when you’re on the sharp end and leading a climb.

Day 23 - Slurpee-like conditions on Guinness Gully

Another awesome day out with Tracy. She’s an amazing climbing partner with years of experience and IFMGA-guide level knowledge (she was married to an IFMGA guide, so that explains the level of knowledge). She’s also strong AF. And detail oriented. Every time she apologizes, I tell her to not apologize. I’ve climbed with mainly guides and I appreciate the level of detail and thinking that goes into climbing. It takes one small mistake to kill you in this sport.

We had planned on going to Professor Falls in Banff. Except it had been hot in the area for a couple of weeks and the condition of ice climbs all over the area had declined. That morning I woke up to rain. And we decided that it would suck to hike 90 minutes in the rain to see if Professor Falls was maybe climbable. Also, Professor Falls is a climb that warrants a great deal of respect for potential avalanche risk. Last season, Carl, from Yamnuska, guided me up it. But we went early and our turnaround time was 12:30 pm because there are two major avalanche debris funnels that feed into the climb. Case in point, the last pitch is about 45 meters long. Two weeks after we climbed it, 40 meters of avalanche debris roared down the path and the last pitch ended up being 5 meters long. A person would be beyond dead if they got caught in that kind of avalanche.

Anyway, we ended up driving to Field to check out Guinness Gully, which I had climbed a couple of weeks prior with Patrick. I find it less stressful to get on routes I’ve already climbed. Except it was warm in Field. Several degrees above freezing. At least the approach was short. But we noticed that an avalanche had ripped earlier that week and traveled all the way down to the road. We were still uncertain about the route itself so we wandered up and took a look at it. It had shrunk and the left side had a lot of running water trickling down. The right side looked thin. The best line looked good. But my head was not up for leading in the conditions. When it’s that warm and runny, the surface ice feels like a Slurpee and I find my feet feel less secure. The tools may feel okay, but I want good feet. And the ice screws are more questionable.

Tracy was fine to take the lead and we agreed that we’d bail if we felt the climb was sketchier than we liked. First pitch was okay-ish and the ice was more consolidated. When we got up to pitch 2, I saw that the left side was melted and rotted out. It was certainly not attached to the rock anymore, and it was a matter of time for it to fall off. The middle and right looked better but runny as hell. And steeper than it seemed at first. When I climbed up after Tracy, running water traveled down the rope and soaked my pants down into my boots. When I got up to the belay stance, we both agreed it was shitty and beyond our tolerance for quality ice. So we bailed and got heckled by Carl who climbed up behind us with a client.

Day 22 - Louise Falls

Kickass day climbing with Tracy. I had climbed Louise Falls two seasons ago and she’s been on the route a couple of times this season. We had planned on Murchison Falls on 93, then saw the potential for high winds and some snow, and decided that it might be too risky (there’s an avalanche risk on the right side of the approach and the route requires no threads to rappel off of in some spots). So we decided on Weeping Wall the night before. Conditions seemed sort of fine until we crossed the continental divide. Where is had been snow to the east, it turned into rain. The temperature was right at freezing point and we discovered the road had turned into a gigantic ice slick. We spotted a U-Haul that had slid off the road and after sliding around on the road, we stopped and got out to see if the driver needed help because there is no cell service for 230 km of the drive on 93 and we had our InReach mini satellite communicators with us (the young lady was able to send messages to her family to let them know what was happening). Another guy stopped and had a tow strap and pulled her back onto the road. She decided to keep going on 93 but closer to the shoulder and at slower speeds. We decided to turn around and go to Louise Falls. Good thing too because 93 was closed from Jasper later that morning.

Louise Falls is a classic and fun climb. We figured we’d get the second shift climb. It’s a popular climb so you either go early or go late to avoid the queue. We rolled up as Findlay and his partner decided to bail at the first anchor because they got spooked by a snow sluff that came down on the left. The avalanche risk isn’t bad on this route, and Tracy and I felt like it was an acceptable risk given the conditions (a bit warm but with could cover - if the sun had been out, the solar radiation would have made us bail to avoid getting crushed by falling ice daggers). We did keep an eye on the left and right sides of the area by the ice cave you climb up to before the crux pitch. I led the first short pitch to the anchor and then we game planned the second pitch. If I felt sketched out, I could have stopped and built an anchor and let Tracy lead the steep bit up to the ice cave. However, I felt pretty good and happy about the sticky ice conditions and motored up to the ice cave. It was probably the longest lead pitch I’ve done. I didn’t get too freaked out by the steep bit, although I did struggle with the rope drag and finding good ice to throw ice screws in.

However, as I was leading, another team of two decided it was a good idea to start up the left directly to the cave. After we told them that we had seen a snow sluff fall on that side. And it was under ice daggers that looked soft and hadn’t been cleaned (ie, knocked down to reduce falling ice hazard). So this asshole was dropping ice on Tracy as he climbed up when we had right of way as the first party leading up. The etiquette is basically to wait until the leading party is pretty much off the ice so you don’t get nailed by falling ice. Behind Tracy was another party of two (they were with the other climbers who came up the left). The ice cave to belay from isn’t that big and there aren’t many good spots to build an anchor. We were anxious to get out of there and did a quick transition and Tracy led up the crux and past the bench and last steep bit to the top out. It was the first time she led that pitch and it was solid and awesome. The walkoff was sort of shitty with deep and slippery snow, so I ended up downclimbing parts of it. But it was better than rappeling off, which would have caused a traffic nightmare.

Very pleased with the climbing that day!

Day 21 - Nothing but the Breast

Day 20 - Nothing But the Breast

Day 19 - Guinness Gully

Day 18 - Louise Falls

Not really a climbing day. It was maybe -31F at the coldest on the way to Louise Falls. When we got to the parking lot it was slightly warmer but still in the negatives. Tracy and I decided to take the walk across the frozen lake to take a look at the climb. Our eyelashes and everything else got frozen and waterlogged, as an indicator of how cold it was. I took the first pitch up the anchor and it climbed hard and shitty. When the ice is that cold, the ice breaks off in big chunks, it’s harder to get a tool in, and the feet feel less secure. It’s also harder to get an ice screw into the ice. And you’re cold. It sucks being out in cold that cold. In fact, there were no other climbers on it.

So we said fuck it and left after the first pitch. It would have sucked to try to climb the crux pillar in those conditions. But good to get fresh air and practice our decision making skills.

Day 17 - King Creek

This was the first day that I met up with Tracy. I think it’s good practice to get a feel for new climbing partners. How much they know. How they climb. How you two communicate. How much experience they have. It was great, even if the ice was in shitty shape compared to previous seasons. King Creek usually has fatter ice and this year it’s not really there. But we got on a couple of lines and did some leads. Some days you just want to get out and do something, even if it’s not amazing.

Day 16 - GBU in the Ghost Wilderness Area

Ouray, Colorado

The first 15 days of the season were spent in Ouray. Unfortunately the Ouray Ice Park opened late due to warm weather conditions, so I didn’t get to do any laps on Pic O’ the Vic. Alas. However, I finally made it out to South Mineral Creek, Eureka, and Telluride for some climbs that have been on my tick list.

The first few days of the season feel terrible. Fortunately, it comes back pretty fast. Because ice conditions were, and continue to be, wonky this season, the early season climbing in Colorado included quite a few days of choss chasing, moss-ateering, and dirt scraping. In other words, the dark art of dry tooling. I guess ice climbers should expect to be better at dry tooling as ice climbing becomes more rarified due to climate change.

Day 15 - Camp Bird on Slippery When Wet and 4 Mile dry tooling routes

Day 14 - Eureka on Fat City and Larry/Moe/Curly?

Day 13 - Senator Gulch

Day 12 - Telluride on Ames Lower Wall

Day 11 - Eureka on Highway to Hell

Day 10 - Telluride on Ames Ice Hose

Day 9 - Eureka on Whorehouse Hoses

Day 8 - Eureka on Stairway to Heaven

Day 7 - Camp Bird on Senator Gulch, Slippery When Wet, and dry tooling

Day 6 - Camp Bird on Chockstone and dry tooling fun

Day 5 - Camp Bird dry tooling

Day 4 - Camp Bird dry tooling

Day 3 - South Mineral Creek on Snowline and Eureka on Second Gully

Day 2 - South Mineral Creek on Campground

Day 1 - South Mineral Creek on Cataract and Copper Gulch

Ice Climbing in Canmore, Canada, 2023

Wow! What a season. I ended up getting 27 days on ice. My goal was to climb a lot after breaking my ankle at the end of June in 2022 and having my ortho tell me it was unlikely I’d be climbing 6 months after the injury. Little did he know what a freak I’d be about PT appointments (shoutout to Matt at Spark Physiotherapy in Alexandria, VA) and doing rehab exercises six days a week. I will say I absolutely hated not being able to stand on one leg, not being able to walk down stairs normally for months, and having a limp and swelling for months during the healing process. However, I was not willing to let the pain and discomfort and frustration keep me from rehabbing my leg. The other option was to not heal well and to have a limp and musculoskeletal issues for a long time.

June 30th, 2022 - hanging with the Bad Decisions gang in Italy after breaking myself.

I will say that the ice season was painful. My foot and ankle hurt almost every day I was out climbing. Some days it was excruciating, especially the last day when I climbed Snowline, a mixed route that required a lot of small stabilizer muscles to maintain my balance in little slush dimples. But I also had a lot of fun and learned a lot.

The Canmore leg of my ice season kicked off after a month in Ouray, where I got some of my mental mojo back. First I had to drive west and north through Utah, Idaho, and Montana. I car camped at RV parks and Walmart parking lots where I could and found it quite comfortable with my expedition sleeping bag. Making coffee in the cold was less fun, but nowhere near as bad as doing it at high altitude on an expedition.

I also found the drive quite pretty and avoided the worst weather. By limiting my driving time to 8-9 hours, I also kept the fatigue from setting in too badly. It was quite the trek though - from Washington, DC to Ouray, Colorado to Canmore, Alberta, then all the way back to the DC area in the spring.

Car camping in freezing temperatures in Utah. The RV park reception jokingly called me brave for car camping. When you have high altitude expedition gear, the cold at normal altitudes is easy to deal with.

Making breakfast before a day of driving north towards Canmore.

My car camping setup. I have a serious -35F lightweight expedition https://www.phdesigns.co.uk/sleeping-bags in the UK. Well worth the money for this bag. I love it. And it’s actually okay to sleep in when it’s warmer.

First up - Sean Isaac’s 3-Day Mixed Climbing Camp

My first clinic of the Canmore ice climbing season was Sean Isaac’s mixed climbing camp. There is nothing as sketchy as skating and scratching around on rock with sharp things in your hands and on your feet and wondering what you’re doing! I had a blast during this camp even though my hands and forearms hated me from pumping out so hard on the drytooling routes.

Sean showing us how it’s done. Especially how to flag your feet and twist your body to maximize reach, stability, and to keep us from trying to muscle every single placement. The thing I’ve noticed about people who excel at drytooling is that they are quiet. You don’t hear the frantic scrabbling of crampons or tools on rock. It is the most methodical form of climbing I’ve ever done. Having to see and place a monopoint in a small dimple in the rock and with precision, requires so much focus and intention.

Sean bringing in the mixed component on day 2 at the Grotto on His and Hers. I had a really hard time with this particular route of the three we practiced on that day. Also, I was exhausted from 6 laps, two per route.

Haffner Creek for some more mixed and mixed trad climbing. The mixed trad felt the sketchiest to me. But then again, I’ve trad climbed on rock twice and I’ve never lead climbed on rock yet. Most people will learn on rock, then start lead climbing on rock, then go into ice climbing and leading on ice. My first lead climbs ever were on ice.

My tool collection is growing. Except I’m going to retire my Grivel Dark Machines (far left) this season. They’ve gotten a serious beating and I have a hole in the carbon fiber shaft, so that compromises the integrity of the tool. The X-Dreams are my mixed climbing tools because I don’t feel like destroying my ice picks on my pure ice climbing tools. And then my Furnace Industry Dry Ice Evolution tools for indoor climbing. Although it’s more fun to drytool indoors with real tools, not these!

Sean Isaac’s 5-day Lead Climbing Camp

Sean reviewing how to set up top rope anchors at the Upper Junkyards

At Upper Junkyards. Practice, practice, practice.

Leader camp at The Wedge. Daisy doing some cleaning to get to good ice. Amelia hanging in the background.

Another trip to Haffner Creek. Reviewing V threads, no threads, how to secure yourself as the leader, setting up the ice anchor to bring a second climber up, rope management, and directionals. I need to do a review course, tbh. It’s a lot to remember and I don’t lead climb enough to remember between seasons.

Checking the crampons before the next climbing day.

A solid lead at King Creek. I felt pretty secure. Of course, the first 30 feet freak me out because if you fall, you’ll take a ground fall and break stuff. The golden rule of lead climbing on ice is the leader must never fall.

First Time Taking a Friend Out Ice Climbing

Peter Henostroza (IFMGA guide from Peru, living in Canmore (L), Orion (middle), me (right). Hilariously, Orion and I saw Peter and were wondering where he was from. So when we struck up conversation, we found out he knows the Ecuadorian guiding crew, including Topo, Carla, Ossy, and Juli! Too funny how small the climbing world can be.

Panther Falls, Jasper

A Bridge Too Far, Kananaskis

Green Monster and More, Kananaskis

Professor Falls

The best description of this photo was that I was giving “first day of school vibes.” I was feeling pretty psyched about a solid 6-pitch climb in good time and style. Which means I’m inching closer to maybe one day trying to climb Polar Circus.

Moonlight, Kananaskis

Snowline, Kananaskis

After we climbed Moonlight, Carl lowered me down so I could give adjacent Snowline a try. Let’s say you’re not swinging anything into any ice. It’s more like snowcone coating the rocks on the first 30-40 feet of this thing. There really aren’t any good secure placements for crampons or tools, just little dimples that you can sort of use to help you inch up the start. I also dinged my ice axes off of rock a few times, oops. But this was a lot of fun despite my right foot/ankle hurting from the effort required on this route. Last year I wouldn’t have been able to tackle this route from a technique or strength perspective. So that’s progress.

Ice Climbing in Ouray, 2023

Gravity’s Rainbow

Me doing a crappy job of stacking the ropes for belaying. The loops should be longer. I also had a butterfinger moment and lost my Petzl Reverso belay device.

Me pretending to be a giant puffy blueberry because I was cold at the belay station. The funniest part of ice climbing is watching climbers trying to warm up to climb after they’ve been belaying for 30-40-50 minutes. Jumping jacks are favored by some people. If there’s a flat surface, sometimes people try to jog around (picture all the gear on our harnesses plus layers plus big boots and trying to move in crampons). Arm swings are a good one to get the blood moving. I favor squats because it gets the big muscles engaged and moves blood around.

Drying gear out every night! I jokingly call ice climbing the gateway sport to having a glove fetish. I bring 3-5 pairs of gloves out with me for an ice climbing day. It’s better than getting the screaming barfies.

Ouray Ice Fest

Camp Bird Climbs

Dexter Creek Slabs

Ouray Ice Park - All In Ice Fest

Day 5 on ice in the Ouray Ice Park in the Scottish Gullies area. This a a fun WI5 line that I had first climbed in 2021 while climbing with Heidi Wirtz. Pumpy but I felt more confident climbing on this line than the first time and I feel like I had my ice climbing mojo back that day, with some fun and confident climbs of 2 other routes in the the area.

All In Ice Fest Ouray Ice Park — Day 4 on ice for me and my first time attending All In Ice Fest, dedicated to elevating and highlighting marginalized communities, including BIPOC, LGBTQIA2S+ communities, and adaptive climbers. We were back in South Park under the guidance of Nikki Smith, an amazing trailblazer in the outdoor industry. I’ve been following her adventures for a few years now and am so happy I got to meet her in person finally. And thank you to Ryan Terry and Carlin Reynolds for assisting!

Ice climbing Ouray Ice Park — Day 3 on ice at South Park at the Ouray Ice Park. Did 5 laps, including the fun steep line in the center of the picture. This was the day when I started feeling more confident with my ankle and started to focus more on the climbing.

Charmin Tube

Charmin Tube multipitch climb in Ouray. Day 2 on ice on January 2, 2023. Still had a lot of headspace dedicated to my ankle and how it felt, so I was still struggling with my confidence

Ouray Ice Park

Ice Climbing in Ouray, 2022

A fantastic end to the 2022 ice climbing season because it was with climbing friends old and new. Left to right, Joshua Jarrin (Ecuadorian IFMGA guide), Pam, Kate, Ryan, Juliana Garcia (Ecuadorian IFMGA guide and first female IFMGA guide in LatAm, Patagonia Ambassador, past president of ASEGUIM, and all around badass), me, and Jordan. Photo by the lovely Anna Nicole Orteaga (Ecuador). And not pictured here is Kim Durham, of Moab Tattoo, whom I climbed with in 2021 as well. We climbed, we ate, we laughed, some people danced (I did not), and had a wonderful few days together.

I was coming off of 15 days ice climbing around Canada, so I felt pretty strong compared to last year. Too bad it doesn’t last long when you have a desk job. Top moments at Ouray, climbing 3 routes in the Pic o the Vic area, known for its long and steeper routes. You have to get lowered into the canyon and the only way out is to climb out. I wish I hadn’t been so lazy about taking pictures at the bottom, but I was too excited to climb. Next time.

Ice Climbing in Canmore, Canada, 2022

Bow Falls. The ice line is on the left side. It’s about 90 minutes from Canmore and a 2-hour approach by snowshoe. We did 2 pitches and skipped the short little bit to the top towards the ice field because of wind gusts of 65-90 km/h. Cold day for me with the windchill but really cool area. Thank you Paul R from Yamnuska Mountain Guides for this awesome trip out to a beautiful area.

Weeping Wall. We did Weeping Wall Left. I’d like to work up to doing the righthand side one day. I can do short pitches of WI5, but not sustained pitches like on this wall. This was so much fun. Well worth the 2 hour drive each way (thank you BW for having a car with snow tires). Three pitches, each at about the entire length of our 60 meter rope. Definitely foot and calf pump. Good thing I had done some laps and more climbing before this last climb in Canada….my arms felt pretty good, which helped with the cleaning on the way up. Also good that I lead climbed the day before so my headspace seconding was the best it’s ever been. Thank you Paul R from Yamnuska Mountain Guides for the leading and the teaching. I had a blast.

Lake Louise climb. What a fun climb with a spicy pillar. I think this was the first ever pillar I had tried, and scooting out from the belay stance to get onto the pillar was interesting. Lots of protection to take out on that pitch, so my forearms were burning. We also left way before dawn so we could be the first ones to climb it that day. Easy walk off, which is sometimes nice.

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Dry tooling at the Playground. Of all the climbing disciplines, I’d say this one feels the sketchiest, least stable, and the hardest. If you thought your arms hurt, do this a few times. And try not to stab yourself with all your sharp gear.

Snowline in Kananaskis. What a fun multi-pitch climb. If you look closely, you can see a person at the top of the route.

Moonlight in Kananaskiks. Also a really fun climb with a good belay cave that you can rest in.

King Creek in Kananaskis is a fun area to go cragging. Lots of single pitch climbs to do laps on and practice technique.

Haffner Creek is an awesome place to go cragging with fun mixed, dry, and ice routes!

Chantilly Falls in Kananaskis. Easy WI2/3. My first lead climb on any surface ever. As in, I’ve never lead climbed indoors. I’ve never lead climbed on rock. And I had never lead climbed on ice before. I have more climbing experience on ice than rock or indoors, which is sort of hilarious. Good day of learning. Definitely more stress with leading, but I had fun! Thank you to Benjamin P from Ridgeline Guiding for the encouragement and coaching on the lead climb. I learned so much.

Bear Spirit crag near Banff with Paul R from Yamnuska Mountain Guides. We did 4 laps on this little pillar, including one with one tool and one with no tools! Then we shifted to the right to mock lead on a shorter pitch and discussed anchors, ice screw placement, rappeling.

Ice climbing, 2021

New Hampshire

Weekend ice climbing fun. Although spending a full day out in a snowstorm taught me to carry at least 5-7 pairs of gloves. It was the first time my hands got cold enough to experience a mild case of the screaming barfies and 10/10 do not recommend.
Gear note: I eventually ended up swapping out my Grivel G12s. They were big and clunky and I didn’t love them. They were also dull (my fault for not sharpening them. I eventually swapped out for monopoint Petz Darts and I am in love with them. It’s a little more work stabilizing the feet, but I love how much more methodical I can be in my foot placement. Also fantastic for dry tooling.

Colorado

2021 was the first time I’d gone to the famous Ouray Ice Park. And I absolutely loved it. It’s close, it’s convenient, it’s got so many routes to climb. It really does allow you to do laps and increase your comfort level on ice. It also lets you get more coaching than you would if you were in alpine or backcountry type of terrain where your guide is out of the line of sight.

I signed up for a few clinics and learned so much. I did a weekend mixed climbing clinic for the first time and wow, all I can say is that my arms felt like they were on fire and were going to fall off afterwards. There is nothing sketchier than climbing rock using ice axes and crampons. Even a millimeter change in direction means you can blow off your placements. You end up having to be so much more aware of your body placement, direction of pull, comfort with your tools, overall balance with your tools, problem solving skills, etc. It’s amazing when you watch experienced climbers dry tooling. It is also one of the hardest forms of climbing I’ve ever tried…off the bat even easy routes are not that easy, in my opinion.

The photo shows me making my way up Tic Tac at the Ice Park. It’s a mixed ice 6/7 route. Although in reality, the majority of it is rock. I was super pumped out and had to take multiple rests. But I did make it to the top. The transition from rock to ice is always spicy and interesting because it usually involves some sort of overhang that you have to make your way onto in a semi-precarious position.

Cogne Ice Climbing, February 2020

Quick exit out of Antares using a snow bollard as an anchor.

View of Monday Money from below. Very spicy walk up to the start

As with last year, I booked a 5-day ice climbing course with a UK company. This time I decided on Cogne. It’s one of the premier destinations for ice climbing in Europe. While the ice is normally fantastic, in recent years, especially this year, it has been unseasonably warm. Which meant that the ice wasn’t as well formed as it has been in the past. However, we were able to find plenty of ice to climb, mostly WI4 as I’m not quite there yet with climbing WI5 or doing mixed climbing.

We warmed up on easy ice on Day 1 so Andy could see how we moved and to review different things.

Day 2 was a trip to Il Patri left. A really cool multi-pitch climb that culminated in a little funnel that was quite fun rappeling down.

Day 3 was a trip to Lillaz Gully, which was a multipitch climb but more reminiscent of Scottish climbing because of narrow funnels, funky overhangs, and using natural features to help get you up the route. I clearly remember some overhanging ice that I had never had to navigate and I ended up pushing my body against the rock as leverage to help with climbing up. And another spot where it was a tricky ledge where I had to use a massive amount of upper body strength to haul myself over. To exit the gully, we had a teeny bit of mixed climbing. Because I’m short, I had such a hard time getting over the rock because I just couldn’t get my leg that high!

Day 4 was a trip to Monday Money. A huge and very busy climb where climbers were constantly knocking off pieces of ice onto climbers below them. I can’t remember how many times I heard someone yell “ICE”, followed by the smash of ice breaking on ice, rock, or snow. This one was a doozy because of the wait time to climb and the traffic. I had to keep my cool when some climbers above me threw their ropes right onto me in the middle of climbing. It almost took me off the wall and I had to cling to my tools, the ice, and disentangle myself and my tools from their ropes. I was not happy, but everything else seems so much less stress inducing after that.

Day 5 was a trip to Antares. A fun little climb. Except the entrance/exit gully was in the line of fire from rock and ice falling from above. I was also exhausted from the the previous days of climbing. It was also super drippy and picked out so I found this a challenging climb. I was soaked from runoff. And we bailed early because the ice and rock fall picked up steam. We had to make a fast exit out of the route so we could avoid getting injured. It was my first time rappeling off a snow bollard, so that was interesting!

I can’t wait to go ice climbing again. It’s such a rare, seasonal treat. And because TSA stole one of my ice axes on the way back to the US, I upgraded to new tools, which will be better than the ones I used on this last trip where I kept on smashing my hands and broke off the movable pieces of the handle.

Slovenia, 2019

Ice climbing in Slovenia in the Julian Alps and Triglav. This was the first time I had booked a 6-day ice-climbing trip. Other outings were just weekend climbs. But this was amazing and hard. I was so sore and bruised from this outing but I had a lot of fun doing some actual climbing. I will say that it’s a very fear inducing sport. It feels so tenuous hanging onto ice with just a few mm of ice axes and crampons,. You definitely don’t want to fall on lead.

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