Archive for March, 2010

March 25th Steve House logged some frequent flyer mileage while leading a pitch roughly half way up the Greenwood/Locke (sp?) route on Mount Temple. He was climbing with Bruce Miller. He fell approximately 25 meters, hitting a ledge during the fall. He sustained moderate injuries: broken ribs, collapsed lung, stable fractures of several vertebrae, & his tailbone. He was taken by helicopter off of the mountain shortly after the fall as Bruce was able to call out for assistance. As of this posting, Steve is at the Foothills Hospital in Calgary recovering for a few days. He will not need any surgery, only rest time to heal his injuries.

Ice climbing season is officially over for me. I got to finish with two Rockies’ Classics: Redman Soars, a fantastic mixed climb, and Murchison Falls.
I’m looking forward to springtime in the desert!

I’ve been having so much fun in the Ghost lately that I decided for one more  round on Hydrophobia, this time with Kristof. It’s been warming up a lot and the drive in is getting a bit more “mud-bog” like with big, deep puddles and slick, rutted hills. We had a rental Jeep so we had fun with it. Unless it cools down, the approach to this climb may be on it’s way out for this season. No surprise.

I went back into the Ghost River area today with Dr. Kristof Kulp. He needed to get his “ice legs” back under him so we went for  leisurely jaunt up Wicked Wanda, a cute little route with an easy approach. Driving in, we saw the curious and somewhat ominous wooden sculpture pictured here in one of the new clear cuts. It kind of sets the tone for this area.

My first week up in Canada started out  with some seriously good climbing! My partner this week has been Pat Murphy from Toronto. Though she has only been climbing for two seasons, she managed to tick a few real Canadian ice testpieces: Curtain Call, Hydrophobia and Whiteman Falls! The latter was an “honest” WI 6+, lacking evindence (hence, hooking) of previous ascents. It required much swinging while hanging on to tools through multiple overhangs. It was a cool piece of ice! Hydrophobia was straight up WI 5 fun, though we had to wait 4 hours for another party to get up it prior to starting (they came in from another approach route, so we never knew of their pressence until arriving there.) Curtain Call, pictured above, was our first outing and though WI 6, it was very ammenanble at that grade due to the 40 degree temperatures that day. The ice was soft, one-swing type stuff.

I can only hope this next week is as good!

Getting ready for “more than just cragging” up north, in Canada. Bridalveil Falls & Killer Pillar over the weekend with the enthusiastic Birdzell brothers.
Notice the nice looking mixed line forming to the right of BVF. Technically off-limits, it would probably be a very good climb: there’s a crack leading all the way to the ice curtain. A good project for someone who’s been spending too much time in ” the creek” lately.

I started my fifth decade of existance with decadent indulgence. The San Juan Mountains were blessed with over two feet of new snow this past week. The snowpack has finally stabilized so avalanche conditions are not what they were in Fenruary.
Dan Hehir and I skied over 12,000 vertical feet of big, fat powder in the Telluride backcountry! It was a truly amazing day!
Here’s Dan floating into the void on “Deep & Dangerous” in upper Bear Creek.

New ice forming above the Posuers’ Lounge Cave. It should yield at least one good, athletic M-climb. It’s only ten minutes from the parking lot and is getting fatter by the minute right now.

Gut punched with Josh Kling and two other Durango hardmen. I finally got my “moment” with the Megawatts. They worked as predicted: fun and fast in the smooth powder. It was a nice day for it as the snowpack is finally bridging and there is still cold snow on the less sunny aspects. The wind picked up while we were on top and seems to be hammering it all now. It was a nice window of opportunity for us.

I took the photo from Anvil, which Josh and I did as a lap on afterwards.

I recently got a fancy, super light cyclo-cross bike. So far, I’ve really just used it as a road warrior and haven’t used in any true off road conditions. I was feeling a bit like poser so I decided to give it a try on some of our local single track and mud, then connect up with a big road climb to Glade Park and down the windy switchbacks of Colorado National Monument. That seemed a true “cross” outing. Well, let’s just say technical, rocky single track is not what it’s meant for. But hey, it’s really light so easy enough to shoulder through the tricky sections. At least I got it muddy and the 3,000 foot climb up the road was a good burn.