Ice Climbing Update 1/12/09

Ben Smith launching onto The Scepter.

Okay, so now that I've finally sold out completely to the domineering forces of technology and personally joined the March of the Internet, I'm actually going to try to update this blog thing semi-regularly. I figure if I can hit a post a week, I should win a prize or a cookie or something, cause that's pretty good for me. So here we go:

This week in Sports! It was a productive climbing week, as I was able to hit several new routes (for me) that I'd been wanting to do for a while now. After finally getting over the holiday slump, I was able to get my friend Blaine out for a couple days mid-week. We started out with a nice warm up day of top-roping at Genesis I.

Fat Pillars At Genesis I.

The day after that, Blaine and I decided to go back and finish up Twin Falls, which was a little too crowded the last time we were there. After what ended up being an awful Bataan-death-march-style slog through waist deep (and sometimes deeper) snow, we finally hit the climb and I got the chance to lead the right side (50+m, WI 3) of Twin.

Blaine, doing his best Vanna White, showcases the view from the top of Twin Falls.

Saturday saw myself and buddies Ben Smith and Eric Skinner waking up at the god-forsaken time of 5:30 a.m. in a somewhat futile effort to beat the Hyalite weekend crowd. Arriving at the parking lot just before dawn was breaking, we were floored to see at least seven cars and 15+ people gearing up at the trail head. It seems that in regard to the Hyalite road, if you plow it, they will come.

We quickly grabbed our packs and started hoofing it, but even though we raced ahead of the pack, we still didn't manage to beat a group of three who were halfway up Mummy Cooler II when we got there. This left us with no choice, and we geared up to tackle The Scepter (30+m, WI 5), the steep, sustained, and intimidating pillar to the left of Mummy.

Ben, after ten long years of lookin' at it and wondering, sends The Scepter.

The crowds kept coming, so we bumped back over to Mummy Cooler II (45m, WI 3+). This was actually a pretty fun climb, and definitely more challenging for me after wearing out my arms on Scepter. After being made fun of for my apparently-too-slow-for-her lead and being called "old school" for using leashes by a young upstart punk of a girl from Missoula (yes, I'm slightly bitter), it was time to start heading home.

On the walk out we decided to hit a little top-roping at the Amphitheater Corner Climbs. Eric hit up a short lead, and Ben and I finished off what was left of our forearms climbing on some mixed and overhanging pillars.

All muscles are on fire at the Amphitheater.

Sunday morning came and we were driving up the canyon yet again, this time headed for a mixed line we'd been hearing about called The Thrill is Gone (35m, M4, WI4). After a short approach, Smith racked up ice screws and rock gear to head up a route that looked thin and difficult enough from the ground, and ended up being a total ass-kicker. This was an awesome route that lived up to its reputation - tough but pretty well protected, really fun rock chimney and thin ice.

This is a lot harder than it looks - Smith puttin' up an impressive lead on The Thrill is Gone.

After this we headed over to Elevator Shaft (75m, WI 3). This was a fun route, but severely beat out ice meant it was probably not nearly as good as it probably is earlier in the season. It's a good moderate route, though, and nicely capped off a great weekend of climbing.

Really fat but kind of beaten out ice at this point in the season - Elevator Shaft is still a fun climb.

Eric getting hit with a little wind and snow on Elevator Shaft.