Praise

 

While the majority of people I know are complaining about how cold, snowy, and icy this winter has been I’m over here praising the Polar Vortex and welcoming the Arctic Air to come and freeze my little corner of the world.  My local crag, which produced some rather thin ice-mixed conditions a few weeks back, was thick with ice this past weekend.  Plush had filled out and the two mixed lines I had climbed on New Year’s Day were now middle-heavy with ice bulges and all the turf and rock in between their splitter cracks was frozen hard.





Andrew pulled into my driveway at 7am, the light of the morning sun just barely an inch over the horizon.  August met us closer to our destination and we took one car in order to remain inconspicuous.  To our surprise, a guided party showed up a few hours later and roped up on Plush.  I’m a little concerned about commercial guiding at such a small, local, and even more important, access-sensitive crag.  While I’m not worrying about over-crowding issues, since even with the rare conditions like we had this weekend this will NEVER be a destination crag, I am worried about climbers losing access due to the wrong people noticing our activities.  In any event, we chatted with the group for a few minutes showing them how to access the top of the cliff and discussing route difficulties.  This group did not look like they would be climbing any of the harder mixed lines we had moved on to after top-roping on Plush. 

Plush



Me, climbing Plush.
 

August, taking a swing into Plush

The first of the two mixed routes, the route to the Left, was much different than a few weeks ago. The bottom of the route had no ice (previously, the start was icy) and so it became a series of delicate steps, as intricate as a well-choreographed dance, in order to reach good tool sticks in the ice and turf at the bulge.

Left Route

Inching up

In the thick

 The second mixed route, the route on the Right, had a ten-foot dagger hanging right smack in the middle.  Only the top three or four feet of the hanger would be strong enough for tool swings or crampon kicks, and even they would have to be delicate.  Last time, this route felt super hard, but this time it was a little easier, but certainly not easy, since the crack behind the dagger in the rock did have some thin but solid ice as well as frozen turf.  Climbing through here was extremely technical as my tools had to edge on small rock features and I needed to avoid crashing into the dagger.  Andrew called it a “physical-mental climb”, which is certainly a good way to describe it.  Last time, neither Andrew nor I were able to climb up to the horizontal crack about 6 feet below the top out.  This time, I was at least able to make it that far but the last few feet is on unbelievably steep terrain.  I was able to inch up, hang, and inch up for a few feet before becoming completely exhausted.  Only August, who’s turning out to be an incredibly good climbing partner, was able to top out but not without a serious physical effort.         

 

Right Route - Super Overhang!

Shot of "The Dagger"

 

Cautious and deliberate moves not to break the ice.

 

4x4

Ice Climbing is dangerous.  I understand and accept that.  My partners and I have often said to each other that as dangerous as ice or rock climbing is you’re more likely to have an accident happen while driving to get there or on the drive back.  I climbed twice within the past few days and both times had driving “epics”. The first was after a brief but heavy snow storm.  I was driving up a very steep park road on Mount Minsi when all of the sudden my front-wheel drive Honda Accord could no longer go up and began sliding back.  Thankfully, I was able to break-slide-break-slide inch by inch in order to turn my car around safely while my partner waited at the bottom of the road in case I were to slide all the way down into traffic.  The second epic was just a few days later driving back from the Catskills in a full-on blizzard.  I spent four hours white-knuckling the steering wheel of my wife’s 4-wheel drive Subaru Outback praying I’d make it home in one piece.  Obviously, the Outback handled much better but 4WD doesn’t translate into on-a-dime stopping or the ability to avoid spin-outs while on an unplowed highway in a blizzard.  That was easily one of the most dangerous situations I ever found myself in.  I had a lot of time to think during that drive.  The majority of the time all I thought about getting home to my family.  I also thought about some of the risks I take, not that I’m a “risky” guy with my climbing, but I really should have paid more attention to the snow reports instead of being so single-minded on the temperatures being cold enough for ice.  And I also thought that without a doubt my next car will be a 4x4.   

And now for the ice climbing…

I had plans to climb on Saturday with Andrew and one other new partner.  Temps had been pretty mild and rainy during the week.  But my buddy out in PA said that the roadside rock was still all iced up and temps going into Saturday would be below freezing and it would snow.  Friday night, Andrew sends me a text saying conditions were “too marginal” and he was going to pass.  My other partner, August, and I were both of the same mind to take a chance and at the very least, check out this area that was new to the both of us.  On Mt Minsi, there’s a creek which forms a waterfall and is in something like a canyon which receives very little sun and since it’s below ground, is likely to be a little cooler.  There’s already established ice climbing there, and a ton of interesting looking rock but I haven’t heard of people going there to climb.

 

Curtain

Wet Rock but Good Ice!

Incredible Mixed Possibilities!

Opposite Side of Canyon

Icy Starts and Awesome Rock, Opposite Side of Canyon.

 



Turns out our gamble would pay off.  We found a long curtain of ice in surprisingly good condition despite the upper section having melted or fallen off.  August and I set up two top-ropes and beat out every inch of ice we were able to get a line on and scraped our tools and crampons on the slippery wet rock overhead.  Had temps been a lot colder, the upper exposed band of rock would have been excellent.  We climbed for a few hours until we were both soaked from melting snow overhead.  This canyon is DEFINITELY worth coming back to in colder conditions.  Several other ice lines, and mixed ice lines, were showing their potential as they formed/deteriorated as well as an incredible amount of dry-tool lines.  There’s just a ton of potential.      

 

The next day out was a trip to the Catskills to climb at The Dark Side.  Ryan Stefiuk discovered this gem of an area a few years ago and I had the chance to climb there with then man himself back in January 2012.  The ice was thick but at the same time it was a little on the brittle side due to it being so cold.  Not too-too bad…but not all that great either.  I still had myself a marathon day of hard climbing.  The only easy route I climbed was Subtraction Gulley, WI3, but that was only to access a harder variation where a gorgeous smear of ice about 20 feet tall formed on the route’s left wall. 

 

Looking up Subtraction Gulley (route hard to see but goes left up the gulley/chimney).  Ice Smear is on left wall, up top.

Looking straigh up Ice Smear variation of Subtraction Gulley.

 

Me (and a gloved finger?) on the Subtration Gulley variation.

I repeated the classic Green Pillar, WI4+, which was a bit scary after the pillar up top fractured all the way across when my partner took a swing into it while on lead.  The pillar managed to remain intact, but the thin line running across it was very obvious and ominous. 

 

Green Pillar.  "Pillar" all the way up top".

Climbing the last few feet of Green Pillar.

 

Frozen Beard after.

 

I climbed another beautiful route called Golden Shower, WI4+, which was a bit “tinselly” but still an amazing and challenging route. 

 

 

Looking at Golden Shower from the left.

Frontal view of Golden Shower. Notice the "tinsel" ice.

 

After topping out on Golden Shower, my partner and I set up a top-rope over two long routes (not sure of their names).  The “Right” route followed a short section of 3+/4- ice until coming to a very fragile pillar.  The pillar could be climbed, but it was not strong enough to take big swings or kicks.  I had to climb hooking my tools and very gently placing the front points of my crampons.  I was close to sending the route but I reached a point where I couldn’t find any hooks or crampon placements without swinging or kicking.  Not wanting to destroy the pillar (or have it come crashing down on me) I decided to lower off.  Had I been a more experienced climber, one able to finesse metal a bit more delicately, I would have gone for it.  The “Left” route did have a hanging sheet of ice section similar to the right one.  But it was much shorter and I was able to maintain a cautious approach climbing through it and topped out.  Again, I’m not sure of the route names but they were both hard 4’s, probably 4+.  And at the end of the day, I chalked up 6 climbs, all but one hard WI4 climbing which feels pretty darn good to me at this point.         

 

"Right" Route, thin pillar after wide thick section of ice.

 

Getting into the business on the "Right" route.

 



Flow to the far left, "Left" route. On the right, you can really see how the ice was hanging.







Hillyer Ravine

Hillyer Ravine is located on the Northside of Katterskill High Peak (elev. 3,655 ft).  At the roadside parking area the elevation is somewhere between 500 and 700 feet.  Topping out at the end of the day, we were at approximately 2,500+ feet.  The view of South Mountain (elev. 2,460) directly across from us, which we seemed to be looking down on, was spectacular.

 

Topography

 

The view from Hillyer Ravine.

When Alan and I parked and started our approach the temperature on the car’s digital thermometer read 8 degrees.  I just checked that day’s observed temperatures and the low was -8 and the high was 26 degrees.  Luckily for us, there was hardly any wind in the ravines we were unaffected by the awful wind-chill that ran wild elsewhere in the Catskills.  However, the ice was hard-frozen from the prior day’s sudden deep freeze (the observed high for that day was only 13 degrees).  Ice that forms and freezes too quickly isn’t always ideal for climbing.  In contrast, iced formed slowly in more moderate temperature is softer and more suited for climbing.  Extremely cold ice is usually brittle and shatters or “dinner-plates” when struck.  Also if it is too cold your picks may end up freezing in the ice and you need to spend a good deal of time and energy twisting and pulling them free.  We ended up with both of those problems but I’ve experienced these conditions before and was able to adjust accordingly.    

 

The approach up the mountain took us nearly 90 minutes.  The first thirty minutes was a steep bushwhack on sugar granule snow up a rocky slope.  After a few hundred feet we moved to our “right” (from our perspective of looking up the mountain, the road to our backs) following a flatter but still uphill traverse along the mountain.  Eventually, we reached a rock carrion and saw blazed trees and boot prints along trail that switch-backed up the mountain.  The trail made our progress much easier, but it was still a long and difficult hike.  We pushed on harder as we could see the ravine’s indent in the mountain and the emerging ice flows. It was then the trail again became rocky and rugged.  By the time we reached the base of Pitch 1, Alan and I were changing out of our sweat-soaked undershirts into fresh baselayers we had both wisely packed.  Staying dry in the cold is key!   
 

The ice route in Hillyer Ravine is made up of four pitches, each about 30-40 feet tall and somewhere in the WI3-4 range of difficulty.  The first pitch is a scramble up narrow ice flows, the second and third pitches are wide and full of options.  The fourth pitch is a bit narrower.  Alan and I moved quickly to the top through easier channels, saving the harder climbing for later.  We were able to top out after only about 90 minutes of enjoyable steady climbing.  Despite the temperature, our pace kept us warm and neither of us seemed to notice the cold.  As we ascended, the view of South Mountain became bigger and better and the having the vast open distance between me and the world below felt wonderful and refreshing.  The only other party to join us turned out to be climber extraordinaire Silas Rossi, who’s always a welcome addition to have in the backcountry thanks to his skill and expertise.  After summiting, Silas and his partner moved on to Viola Ravine and Alan and I rappelled down to the lower pitches to engage in more challenging climbing.   

 

Pitch 1

Alan, approaching Pitch 2.





Pitch 3.









Glancing at the Pillar, on Pitch 3.
 



On one of the final pitches of climbing.



 


Topping out!

On what I believe to be the third pitch was a huge ice pillar that looked scary as well as fantastic.  Alan and I agreed that would be a climb we would look for on our descent.  Alan decided he would lead what looked like an easier line to the pillar’s right, and then walk over from the top to set up a top-rope above the pillar.  Turns out this easier line was a brutally difficult lead with the ice being as brittle, hard, and unpredictable as we’ve seen all day.  At one point, Alan struck hollow ice with his tool and underneath was water trapped under pressure that first shot out and then gurgled for a good minute before finally stopping.  Luckily, Alan braced himself and kept his calm waiting it out.  His gloves and jacket kept him dry, but his ice tool ended up freezing itself to his glove.  While following him up the route and cleaning screws, I discovered one of the screws became frozen under the water flow and I had to hang on the rope and beat it out with my ice axe for a few minutes in order to free it.  What looked like a straightforward WI3 climb turned out to be more like WI4+ thanks to the awkward ice conditions.  It goes to show that climbing ice isn’t just about skill, technique, strength or endurance.  A huge part of being successful and safe is having the ability to read, understand, and anticipate the ever-changing nature of frozen water.   



ICE PILLAR!

 



Ice Pillar, with the rope following my climb.  You can make out Alan at the top for a sense of its size.
 



For the pillar, the anchor was set on a tree above and Alan lowered me down the route.  This was to my advantage, as I was able to view the ice and look for features to climb and get a sense of its steepness…and it was steep!  The pillar was a good 50 feet and our guess was that it was WI4+, but there was certainly some WI5 climbing.  At its base was a cone of ice about 10 feet tall and once I reached the free-standing ice I could tell by the strain in my neck when looking up that this would be tough.  The starting moves were physical because of the pillar’s angle, but there were still enough features to allow to me climb it directly.  The higher I went though, the steeper the pillar became and the less features I found.  Just over mid-way up, pumped and exhausted, I found myself on the pillar’s left side looking at almost featureless vertical ice.  By then, I was moving a few feet at a time and taking a rests hanging on the rope.  And of course, I was getting my picks stuck in the ice and spending a lot of energy working them free.  Including the hike in, the 4 pitches climbing up, the rappels, the previous route's difficulty, the cold, and the length of the day there was very little strength left in me.  I did, however, reach the top.  In spite of needing several rests, I was able to climb this beautiful pillar on my own and it was an amazing experience to be on ice this challenging.  By far, that pillar was my hardest ice climb, easily surpassing Little Black Dike. 



Working the steep pillar, notice how you can't see my legs or feet.



 

Something important to mention is that this day would have never been possible without my wife.  That morning, my car was dead in the driveway and she got out of a warm bed at 630 in the morning, into sub-zero temperatures, to help me push it into the snow covered street and then she let me use her car so I could still go ice climbing.  Babe, I love you and can’t say thank you enough! 

Scratching the Surface on New Year's Day

I've mentioned my local crag quite a bit.  A quick refresher is that it's 20 minutes from my house, has a ten minute approach, and is made up to an upper and lower cliff.  The upper cliff is where I do the majority of my climbing.  The upper cliff is roughly 30 feet tall with at least a dozen routes, most harder than 5.9.  The climbing is physical and pumpy.  The face is overhanging and the holds are mostly rounded without a lot of sharp positive features or incuts.  The lower cliff is crumbly, dirty, wet, and mossy.  It's a little taller and a lot longer than the upper cliff.  But unless it's bone dry and in the dead cold of the year, the rock is just way too gnarly to climb.  Even with a good cleaning, it would still be challenging since it always seems to be wet or seeping water.  And besides a handful of splitter cracks that are clogged with debris, most of the rock is featureless.  While there are established routes, none of my partners or any of the very, very few people I've encountered climbing there (access is sensitive, and we mostly climb there when the leaves are thick enough to hide us from view) have expressed any real interest in cleaning up the lower cliff.  However, I've been saying all along that the lower cliff has potential for ice.  Last year, I got to climb Plush, WI3, and did notice several thin lines forming inside of the many splitter cracks throughout the cliff.  This year, I decided I would make an effort to explore other routes, with or without ice, but regardless I'd be wearing crampons and using axes as this cliff is suited to mixed climbing.  The cliff is undoubtedly virgin to mixed climbing and is hardly ever "rock" climbed.  There's not a mark on the rock, be it gouges or chalk.  I felt comfortable that I was one of, if not the first to climb the large flow of Plush last year.  And I'm pretty sure this year I was the first to put tools and crampons into two other mixed routes.

New Years Eve I took a ride up to check conditions and saw that Plush was just a handful of dagger icicles, but a few of the splitter lines (I want to say there's 5 or 6) had ice forming in and around them.  I asked Andrew if he'd be willing to join me early New Year's Day for a few hours and he was game.  The next morning, he showed up looking a little weary and tired from the night's celebratory activities.  He said he probably wouldn't climb much, as he's also brand new to dry-tooling and mixed climbing, but he'd be ok with belaying for an hour or two.

The first line I tried felt like 5.7 climbing, so it was probably an M2 or M3 in "mixed" ratings.  I followed a vertical crack with a 2-3 inch thick smear of ice which ran up until a horizontal crack about 5 feet from the top.  The ice was thin and there was just barely enough purchase for my tools and crampons.  To the left of the crack was a thicker flow of ice, a little over 10 feet tall.  This variation was a lot steeper than the original line, but worth climbing since the ice was good.

View of the route. Notice the ice to the left of the rope for the variation. After the horizontal crack, it's all dry rock.

Taking a quick rest before topping out.

About 30 feet to the right of this line was another splitter.  This crack was a lot wider and the wall was slightly overhanging.  As you can see in the picture below, there's a lot less ice on this route.  Not shown, at the bottom, there was a staircase of thick ice that made for a fun scramble.  But what you see here is the business of the climb.  There were very few options for tool or crampon sticks in the ice, so it was purely dry-tooling as well as turf-shots into the partially frozen moss and mud within the crack.  The climbing on this route felt more like 5.9-5.10, so it might have been an M5.  I had to get very creative on this one, using back-steps and drop-knees to get any sort of footing outside of the crack on very smooth rock with limited features.  Unfortunately, after a few tries I wasn't able to top out.  I did manage to figure out how to execute the crux (back-step and drop knee) but my forearms were in dire need of a rest and I had to lower off the route.  Not wanting to keep Andrew out, I decided to wrap it up and save the finish for next time.     

Almost...



Christmas Gift

Ice Season started early this year.  Around mid-December, a deep chill came over the North East and lines as far south as the Catskills Mountains were thick with ice.  Not quite an anomaly for ice to show up in December, but definitely no longer the norm.  And while climbers were hacking into the ice I was a few thousand miles south in Jamaica enjoying 85 degree sunshine, jerk, and Appleton Rum while attending a family wedding.  Upon returning, I turned on my cellphone as the airplane was taxiing and it came to life with the week's prior texts from Andrew, asking if I had been available to climb.  But within a day of returning, record-breaking temperatures as warm as 70 degrees destroyed the ice and set us all back to zero.

Christmas Eve I went to bed excited to watch my wife and son open their gifts in the morning while a light dusting of snow fell and temperatures dropped significantly.  On Christmas Day, I opened up a gift that any ice climber would be envious of, Petzl Nomic ice axes!  Eager to put the axes to use as well as climb ice again, I reached out to Alpine Endeavors to see if there was any ice to climb in the Catskills.  I was told no, but about an hour later decided I wanted to get myself a guide anyway.  Besides ice, the Catskills are exploding with mixed and dry-tool lines and I thought I'd finally get myself acquainted with scraping crampons, turf shots, and hooking.

I was contacted by Alan Kline, who had guided my wife and I last year.  We spoke about mixed climbing and dry-tooling and he was familiar with some lines I could try.  A while later I heard back from him, via text message.  "Was out today, lots of hard ice and good stuff at Stony! Get psyched!" 

Alan and I went to Stony Clove's West Side, one of my favorite places to ice climb.  This area is usually a safe bet for ice and a few hours into the morning we could hear and see other climbers.  The first route I got on was The Entertainer, WI3.  After ten feet of overgripping my tools I stopped at a rest and shook my hands out and stopped to think about ice climbing technique over rock climbing technique in order to reset my body's rhythm.  After that, I had no problems and cruised with ease up to the top.

Warming Up on The Entertainer, WI3



The next route was a dry-tooling/mixed line that Alan put up himself called The Workshop, M3.  The route follows a chimney crack with several laptop sized ledges jutting out of the outside corner.  It took Alan just over forty-five minutes to lead the route, and he felt conditions that day made it more like M3 difficult.  The route is a lot of 1-2-3, then rest.  A short series of hard moves followed by a decent stance to shake out your arms and place pro.  Towards the top, there's a smearing stem (legs opened, pushing out against the wall) underneath a huge roof.  This was the only area I found to be difficult but it was not climbing as much as because of my height and I was not able to reach and clean the cams from the roof.  I consider cleaning gear while seconding a very important responsibility, and I do my best to leave no man behind.  But unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried and stretched I could not reach these pieces and Alan had to retrieve them on rappel.  Otherwise, the climbing itself was a great success.  As hard as it was (and it was definitely the hardest thing I ever climbed) I did not fall and took no hanging rests save for my time spent under the roof. 

Bottom Half of The Workshop, M3-M5.



The final route of the day was the Little Black Dike, WI4.  On New Hampshire's Cannon Cliff is the Black Dike, a North East mega classic.  The Catskill's LBD is very similar in appearance to BD, but nowhere near as long (BD I believe is 4 pitches, and has a long grueling approach as well as descent).  But the LBD is without a doubt a Catskill's classic and I had been wanting this route for some time.  The route's difficulty that day was definitely WI4, maybe even WI4+.  Some sections had been bashed pretty good and had a snow-cone like quality and the sustained vertical crux was dripping heavily.  It was work!  Not so much physically strenuous as much as the sustained climbing was tiring.  But I was able to send with no falls or hanging rests.  This might be the best, and certainly the hardest, ice route I've ever climbed.

Sinking my Nomics into LBD.

In the thick, LBD.



I definitely feel strong on ice, I'd even go as far to say confident.  Most of the routes that day were around 75 feet, give or take, and the height had almost no effect on me.  I guess I'm more in my element doing this cold, icy, mixed, alpine sort of climbs than I am rock cragging?  Whatever the case, I'm happy and motived for this ice season as well as mixed and dry-tooling and am looking forward to staying busy and cold!