ElisifHarro Posted April 7, 2008 Posted April 7, 2008 Trip: Cody, WY - High on Boulder, Mean Green, Moratorium Date: 3/29/2008 Trip Report: Daniel and I took a mini-break from Oregon for a little ice binge. We started out with a warmup day on the 27th in Hyalite with Daniel's twin brother Mark. The road was plowed and very easy to drive with a 4-wheel drive vehicle. We headed up to Mummy Cooler II and the Scepter. It was cold that day, -15F in the morning! We started out on the Mummy and all immediately lost feeling in his hands The Mummy was just as fat as at the beginning of the season, and only slightly wet on the far left side. We intended to head over to the scepter next, except a group of two was on it and the leader did not look like he was having any fun in the cold temps. Instead of waiting we headed over to Feeding the Cat and played around on that, not as big as last year, but really just covered with a lot of snow, still a fun time though. The Matrix was the same story. Mummy Cooler II Cold "I can't feel my hands" The next day the intention was California Ice in East Rosebud Canyon. Unfortunately we got there and the 30% chance of precip actually meant puking snow. Since the climb tops out close to 10,000 feet (see John Frieh's earlier TR) we opted to save this climb for another day. Definitely a climb that everyone should try to do though! Bummer We instead headed to Cody, WY. After a brief stop at Core Mt. Sports and a chat with Aaron Mulkey (thanks!) we headed up the South Fork, which has experienced more snow this year than Aaron has ever seen in the many years he has been climbing there! We shot over to High on Boulder. Two great ice bridges avoided wet feet in the river. The snow was beautiful but definitely made for a more difficult approach/snow wallow up to the cimbs. After about an hour we reached the climb. I got super confused and ended up linking P1 and the majority of P2 (WI4). For future reference, a 70m rope can make it to the top of the large ledge of P2 if one builds an anchor in the ice rather than making it up to the chains. We then climbed "the wide curtain of rolling ice to the top of the main flow". We opted to avoid the quarter mile of hiking to the 20m WI3+ due to the guaranteed super wallow to get there. High on Boulder The next day was another South Fork classic, Mean Green WI5 (according to Winter Dance, one of the top ten routes in North America). This approach was also ~1hr snow slog and the short walks between pitches definitely had another element of snow rarely seen in Cody. The first three pitches were fat and enjoyable. The fourth crux pitch is a must do pillar and in about 4+, maybe 5 conditions...WIfun. We avoided the last wide ice pitches, although they looked good, the snow looked even deeper (noticing a trend here ) Rappel the route. P1 of Mean Green Crux pitch Sussing it out Snowy The final day of our tour was the Moratium WI4+ (which only forms every three to five years)! That day was the first day the weather started to turn and it was snowing quite heavily that day. We got up to the first pitch, historically notoriously thin. It looked quite straightforward, thin but protectable, so I decided to push myself on lead (My hardest has been a 3+ since this trip).I headed up and got about 15 meters into the climb when very frequent, very heavy spindrift began to fall, including a quite heavy snowfall coming down on me at one point in time. I burned through a lot of screws at the bottom because I was freaking myself out, only to realize that the top half didn't ramp off as it appeared from the bottom. Oh well P2 was an equally long fun pitch. It was a great climb! Not all approaches can be bluebird... or easy.... Hmmmm.... Pitch 1 Moratorium Tired but content, we called it a week, pulling an all nighter to get home. Oh how it sucks to be back, but a wonderful trip Gear Notes: Resources: Winter Dance by JoJo and Coldfear.com posted by Aaron Mulkey Approach Notes: Typically one hour approaches, with easy starts and short steep sections to the bases of the climbs. Complicated by deep snow this year, but boot packs are helpful Moratium was about a two hour approach Quote
PickleJuice Posted April 7, 2008 Posted April 7, 2008 WI4+! Nice work Elisif! (okay, okay...no point of reference, but I can imagine...) How was Canada? You two have been busy this winter... I'm jealous, beats climbing indoors trying to avoid the rain . Great job Harros! (Elisif, I love the green pooooooof...grrrr...I should have got one too...) Quote
John Frieh Posted April 7, 2008 Posted April 7, 2008 Nice work nerds. Double digits for the year? Did you get rid of those leashes yet Elisif? Quote
ElisifHarro Posted April 7, 2008 Author Posted April 7, 2008 Hell yeah , I finally went leashless during our last trip to Canmore and Professor Falls...I never realized what I was missing, no more wrist constrictors for me 12 days of ice this season per my calculations Quote
pink_chalk Posted April 8, 2008 Posted April 8, 2008 That is awesome Elisif!! Super jealous. Going leashless, huh? Stud* Thanks for sharing your TR. Brings back good (cold) memories of earlier this year. Keep it up! Jennifer Quote
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