Kraken Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 Date: August 19, 2005 Location: Matanuska Glacier...Alaska I got a call from a girl from North Carolina named Jess. She had found me from a website like CascadeClimbers.com. She wanted to know if there were any good places to ice climb in August, when she and her friend Tony were coming up here. I told her that the only close place was the Matanuska Glacier. She offered to pay me to guide them around and supply a rope and screws. I readily agreed and we kept in contact for the coming month. I drove to the glacier early on Friday morning, still hungover from the night before, and finally located them. We hiked to the good seracs where I had climbed many times before and set up a top rope. Being as how I was their guide, I felt it was my duty to make sure they had a good time and got to climb the most, so in order to not take up too much time leading, I just toproped for them. We climbed for about 6 hours and they were having a great time. It was really warm outside, around 75-80 degrees, and the glacier felt good with the radient coolness blowing off of it. We continuously checked the anchors I had built to make sure they weren't melting out too much. We climbed in two different areas and did three different routes. This was my first guiding experience and it was really great. We all had a great time, Tony and Jess were great people, and we had fabulous conditions. Tony kept snapping shots of me while I climbed, that was really nice of him. It was quite a treat to get paid $75 to climb ice for 6 hours, I could make a career out of this easily. It felt good to swing my tools after a 5-6 month break. The only bad thing was that I couldn't find my harness that morning as I was scrambling to get ready, so I was forced to use webbing...which made it uncomfortable at times. Other than that, it was a perfect day and a great time. For more pictures, check out my gallery. The ones I posted are the low quality ones. My gallery has the high quality ones shot with my Canon Rebel XT. PICTURES: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=7679 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cobra_Commander Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 It's a good thing you explained why you were toproping otherwise people might not think you were tough. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rhyang Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 sweet ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kurthicks Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 The only bad thing was that I couldn't find my harness that morning as I was scrambling to get ready, so I was forced to use webbing...which made it uncomfortable at times. It was quite a treat to get paid $75 to climb ice for 6 hours, I could make a career out of this easily. Quite professional. Be careful about getting paid. It brings on all sorts of legal ramifications (permits, insurance, etc). Especially if someone was to get hurt (I doubt you have a $1,000,000 or higher insurance policy). As for making it a career, don't bet on it. Most guides would be stoked to earn $75/day every day, but it just doesn't work like that even after taking a number of AMGA courses. Usually, you bust your ass 3 months a year and dirtbag the rest. Looks like fun times though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kailas Posted August 28, 2005 Share Posted August 28, 2005 Top roping aint ice climbing, leading is, the rest is what city-slicker gapers do! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kraken Posted August 28, 2005 Author Share Posted August 28, 2005 Ahhhh! The real ice is only a few months away, I can't wait to use my new Bionics Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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