Jens Posted January 21, 2007 Posted January 21, 2007 Jeff Hansel and I crossed the tumwater river this morning and slogged up the penil drainage in the dark. We saw a cool ice climb that we thought was the pencil barely visible in the darkness. It did not go well for us. I led out about 40 meters and set a belay. We realized we were not on the pencil when we realized that the falls was at at 70-80 meters and radically overhanging (it wasn't a water ice 5 the way it was formed). I started up the next pitch and looked up to see a large portion of the waterfall cut loose. Luckily the climb was steep enough that it free fell behind my back. We V-threaded and bailed. As we headed down to rejoin the pencil gully, we looked up the main drainage and in daylight we saw the pencil! We were a bunch of idiots in the dark. We decided to hike back up to climb it. As we were nearing the pencil, lots of hanging ice high above the valley calved off and lanched' the gully. We ran to the left side and dodged the ice. We bailed again. Lower in the gully we heard a loud crack. 60 whole feet of the falls that we had just climbed the first pitch and a half earlier in the morning came down! Just bare rock left! I felt sick. We had climbed past the section that calved off completely. Again time to dodge ice balls. I'm having difficulty posting picures but will try again later. For pencil aspirants, the bad news is that it looked to be getting a lot of sun and the thermometer read 39F. The good news is that the pencil is less than vertical as stated in the ice guidebooks. For Drury Aspirants, the bad news is that is getting a lot of sun and good news is that it looks to be high volume this year. The river was running much higher and faster than my other crossings I have made. Quote
bwrts Posted January 21, 2007 Posted January 21, 2007 wow! the sun exposure in the area has reached aspect-kill all ice. capp and I drove by there this afternoon and noticed the recent ice departure that you fortunately bailed from... Quote
olyclimber Posted January 21, 2007 Posted January 21, 2007 penile drainage glad you guys weren't on the climb when that 60ft section broke off. sounds exciting. Quote
Weekend_Climberz Posted January 22, 2007 Posted January 22, 2007 Wow!! That's pretty cray. Glad you guys made it out okay. You seem to have a knack for dodging falling particles of mountainsides Jens. :tup: Quote
rat Posted January 22, 2007 Posted January 22, 2007 dan and i went up to look at that after bailing from the pencil. cool mushrooms on that line but it was melting jackass fast in the sun. we fled. glad to hear no one was hurt up there over the weekend. as of monday morning, the pencil was still standing but it was raining on stevens pass. Quote
G-spotter Posted January 22, 2007 Posted January 22, 2007 antibiotics will help with that penil drainage Quote
Doug_Hutchinson Posted January 23, 2007 Posted January 23, 2007 Climbing ice can be pretty freakin freaky at times. Not to highjack the thread, but in recent years, has anyone seen Drury looking fatter than on Saturday? At close range, how did it look? From the hwy, Drury's chubbiness made it look very moderate. Quote
Jens Posted January 23, 2007 Author Posted January 23, 2007 Some pics. It is the falls to the right of the pencil in the picture. Quote
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