ice climbing!

guess what i did today!

ice climbing!

actually, i had a rather epic day.

so i woke up early and was super psyched to get out and climb. hit up the loaf 'n jug (gas station) popped in some daft punk and headed out to hyalite canyon.

epic:
as i was driving up the canyon, and the road was not really a road, just a sheet of ice really. (mom... you might wanna not read this... teehee) but yeah, i was chuggin' along, and while turning a corner the saab did a 360 spin, i was backwards for a while, then spun back around and *whump.
luckily, i got stuck on the side that only had a 6-8 foot ditch, which i was halfway into (other half on the road... sorta). the other side dropped about 15 feet into an iced over creek. would not have been good...
also came close to rolling the car... kinda glad i didn't. i like the saab. and i like not getting hurt.

after waiting for about an hour for the wrecker to come get me out, i continued onward up the canyon. very slowly. annoyingly slow. but, i got to the crag!

then! ice climbing!

IF bad ass Eric Larson tearing it up

strangest thing ever.
(oh, yeah, we're gonna hack at some frozen water stuck to a cliff, and try to climb it! it'll be awesome!)

i guess i did fairly well for my first day on ice, it's really not all that different than rock. many aspects of moving on rock carry over to ice. finding pick placements was difficult. not too sure what is a good hold and what isn't. also, the feet confused me. instead of stepping onto everything with my big toe, i had a big metal spike. so strange to not be able to feel the foot hold. the cool part is that every hold is a jug.

i also tried out some mixed routes, aka using ice tools on rock. hopefully people only do that on choss, that would be super lame if peeps used the axes on the quality stone.
anyway, the mixed routes were even weirder. i was able to use some handholds every now and then, but it was all about camming the tool in the rock in any orientation to get some leverage. i felt so shaky on this stuff. but i got to try a project route, and surprised myself by getting to around where the strong dudes did on the route.

but yeah,
definitely a good day, and hopefully i'll get some more days out on the ice.

dean and me.

(wow... i'm actually taller than he is. we're standing on a hillside. just thought i'd clear that up.)

and, big thanks to dean for the motivation. also mammut, petzl, and la sportiva for letting me borrow some gear and get going.

i'm excited for more ice!

(edit: by the way, a helmet is an absolute must when ice climbing. so much crap comes flying down! and it's all huge chunks of ice... teehee)