Rock Adventures: 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.