Blakej Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 (edited) Last Thursday my friend Chris and I took off on a marathon 26 hour drive to Ouray via Eugene, Or to pick up Chris2. Driving through the night running out of gas once and only one ticket(mine)we cruised the prarie schooner through the night taking shifts sleeping in the back of the van. Arriving late friday night we parked up the yankee boy basin road and prepared for the next day. This would be my first foray into the world of ice climbing so the constant anticipation kept me up for quite a while looking forward to the next days events. The next morning we walked down the road and set up in the classroom area. Its an amazing feeling rappelling down into a world of ice and quite humbling trying to imagine yourself scaling your way out of it. Starting off on some WI3s and what I understand were perfect conditions the first half of the day was a success. The feeling of quickly progressing from a bumbling idiot to making good pick placements and having confidence in their ablilty to hold left me totally amped for finishing off the afternoon on some steeper more challenging lines. Sunday morning with Chris confident of my ability to take it out of the park we headed up the yankee boy basin road and poached a nice warm up climb before heading up to some of the classics and my first defeat. Chris and Chris2 cranked it up and well used WI4 and then I had a go. Initally I just started going and was doing pretty well until the third screw that just wouldn't seem to come out. After struggling for a good five minutes from hanging position and with fingers going numb I decided to leave it behind for the rappel and get moving when I hit the figurative wall. Staring up the ice felt overhanging and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't manage to get a pick placement. In despiration I called up to be lowered but being on an autoblock I had to unweight the rope for them to change the system. Of course just wanting to get down I climbed up another three feet and unweighted the rope not even thinking that I had just managed another three feet and there for could probobly atleast manage some more. The frustration I felt with myself when I got down was complete. Excuse after excuse ran through my head and out my mouth. It was my cold hands or the fact that the straight shafts prevented me from getting good placements in the pockets. Chris quickly put me in my place. "If you cant admit your scared you'll never beat it so quit making excuses." That was all I needed. We moved over to another route and while chris pulled off a beautiful three tiered seep I belayed and stewed over my failure. We finished off the day with a steep WI3 which helped rebuild my confidence but also stewed me more knowing it wasn't that much easier than my previous failure. The following morning it was back to the park for our final day. We found a beautiful area that gave plenty of options for all of our skill levels and went at it. Great times were had by all until chris lead up and threw a second rope for Chris2 and I to climb out simutaniously. Taking the closest rope at hand I figured I'd just slack it and move it over 10 feet when I reached the steep ice curtain toward the top. As luck would have it the rope refused to move and I was faced with my wall again. Refusing to bitch out again I closed my eyes and cleared my mind, telling myself to just climb its that easy. Looking up with no where else to go I reached overhead and lightly tapped the thin ice curtain with the pick until I just felt it hold. Placing my other tool parallell to my position for stablity I settled my weight on my thinly placed tool for the first time totally trusting my full weight to a sketchy placement and stemmed my feet on up. As I crested over the climb I was cursing and thanking chris all and once for the challenge. All through lunch I was high on life for my achievment. We finished off the day with a WI5 that we were told was a WI3 Chris and Chris2 knocked it off in great style. I on the other hand hit my wall again and was unable to complete the climb though I forced myself to push through my personal crux of the climb and into exaustion. All in all a great trip aside from the 35 hour bus ride home with boiled egg eating man with turrets(sp) syndrome yealing in my ear and the bus driver getting lost 3 times. pictures to follow as soon as I can manage to figure out how to post them. Chris topping out me thinking WI3 sure as hell feels vertical The climb that I punked off of Edited February 25, 2005 by Blakej Quote
Jim Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 I'd rather read 30 of these than one hard-man cheast-beat. Rock on!!! Quote
Kraken Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 yeah dude, awesome TR! That rocked! Looking forward to pictures! Quote
rhyang Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 Probably the most instructive & fun lesson I ever had was being forced to climb without swinging or kicking (this was on a really hacked out climb) - only hooking and stepping. Then my partner gave me some tips for resting in various ways - I get the impression this is a really key skill on steep ice. I still have a lot to learn, but now I can follow him on a WI4 pitch and not pump out so badly. I'm jealous that you had the opportunity to climb a WI5. Don't give up !! Quote
Steddy Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 (edited) i just spent enough time for tonight on that, but as i've discovered and stand to be corrected, here's one way to get it working. after dealing with the wierd-ass loading into plab, get your photo up, right click your image --> properties --> copy THIS url. it of course helps to be working with multiple windows open. in your post compose, hit the 'image' button and paste the url in. just like the ice, it comes with time. Maybe that'll help. Good on you for making the marathon march - have fun getting into the ice. [edit] whoah! forget all that now? looks like you're in but maybe it helps someone else? Edited February 25, 2005 by Steddy Quote
terrible_ted Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 Probably the most instructive & fun lesson I ever had was being forced to climb without swinging or kicking (this was on a really hacked out climb) - only hooking and stepping. Then my partner gave me some tips for resting in various ways - I get the impression this is a really key skill on steep ice. I still have a lot to learn, but now I can follow him on a WI4 pitch and not pump out so badly. Along the same lines, the first lesson I got on waterfall ice was to climb up a WI3 line (on TR, natch) without tools. It really wasn't too surprising that the "secret" was once again to be found in footwork. It's a great way to start the season, and get out of the "all pullups all the time approach". Placing screws on a mock TR lead, especially something well above your ability, is a nice way to get a sense of what you need to be working on as well. It's also nice practice to try some downclimbing on TR. You'd hate to try that the first time on lead... Cool TR. On to the Rockies!!! -t Quote
chriss Posted February 25, 2005 Posted February 25, 2005 That last picture looks like Choppo's Chimney? But thinner than I remember. chriss Quote
thelawgoddess Posted February 26, 2005 Posted February 26, 2005 cool. nice work! at least your first time ice climbing was on some actual ice! ;-) Quote
bremerton_john Posted March 3, 2005 Posted March 3, 2005 Way to go bro! Looks like some good times. But be honest, you'd rather climb that than Olympic choss? (sarcasm obviously implied) Quote
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