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[TR] Leavenworth - Rainbow Falls and The Funnel 12/27/2009


rocketparrotlet

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Trip: Leavenworth - Rainbow Falls and The Funnel

 

Date: 12/27/2009

 

Trip Report:

First TR, sorry if I don't get the format right!

 

EDIT: Pictures resized, posted here: http://www.summitpost.org/trip-report/586951/Ice-climbing-in-Leavenworth.html

Giant pictures removed from this post.

 

I went out to Leavenworth for some ice climbing the 2 days between Christmas and my birthday, making for a perfect holiday break! It was my first time ice climbing, due to a very generous invitation by Curt (montypiton). We went up Rainbow Falls (I think) the first day, where I learned technique and placing screws. I did a lot of "bouldering" (icicling?) at the bottom while Curt and his son Michael were climbing, testing out different tools and different swing techniques.

 

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The next morning, we hiked up to The Funnel, a 2-3 pitch waterfall on Hubba Hubba Wall. The ice was more brittle and hard here, and I had to learn different techniques. I got a tool stuck on the vertical section at the bottom, and consequently fell trying to get it out. (Darn it!) When I reached the belay, I asked Curt where to stand, and he gestured towards a slightly less sloped part of the waterfall with a thin layer of snow. I remember thinking, "Wait, what? I don't see a stance...oh." It was cool to look at the anchor, built off a resident piton, Curt's freshly-placed piton, and an ice screw. I hung the backpack with our puffy coats and some hot tea and clipped my camera in to the anchor. This was all new to me, but what a fun experience! Curt brought Michael up and then led the second pitch, then Michael followed. A barrage of ice continued on throughout, with me looking up then consequently pressing myself against the waterfall repeatedly as chunks of ice bounced and shattered on my helmet. When it was finally my chance to climb, I undid the anchor and continued on to Curt and Michael at the top, noticing how small the front points on my G-12's were and how they barely scraped the surface of the ice, yet still gave me enough support to weight them.

 

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The rappel tree, unfortunately, was about 20 feet above us. I led the short, unprotectable pitch (thinking there would be ice underneath, thus rendering it easy), but there was only powder snow covering rocks. I delicately continued up, and I hooked a small tree with my ice tool until I was able to climb onto the large tree, clip in, and belay Michael and Curt up. We rappelled back down, packed up our gear, and hiked down in the dark.

 

All in all, this was a fun trip and I am very eager for my second time ice climbing!

 

-Mark

 

Gear Notes:

I bought a pair of Aztars from Curt! It was cool getting to test gear before buying it.

 

Approach Notes:

Rainbow Falls is like 3 minutes from the road, The Funnel is about 1,500 feet higher. Totally worth the walk though! (Who am I kidding- I like hiking too.)

Edited by rocketparrotlet
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oh, sorry. thought you may have been uploading the pics to this website. if you wanna fix them you will have to resize the images and then upload them.

 

I don't know how to do any of this...I tried to upload them to this website first, but I couldn't figure it out. I pressed the "submit" button, a new menu came up, and all my photos disappeared. You can see them okay on 30% zoom, but it would be nice if I could get these fixed. I've already spent an hour and a half to get as far as I am. (This is why I never post TR's!)

 

-Mark

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Mark! You know when you post photos on summit post there is a large button that you can get a photo that takes up most but not all of the screen, I suggest using that next time. An example is here of one of yours:

585660.JPG

 

It is the same amount of work to use rather than the original big size. If you look here you can see there are buttons for diffrent sizes.

http://www.summitpost.org/image/585660//first-day-on-the-ice.html

No editing of photos required... ever! I just let websites do the resizing for me and them get the mediam or large generated photo. Always keep in mind if you scource your photos off of the original especially when its high resolution its going to be very big. SP is not the only site that has medium sized images. ;-)

 

Besides that, nice trip report, good to see you posting one. I will admit, you helped inspire me a bit more into ice climbing. Cheers Buddy.

Edited by Josh Lewis
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nice, I've done that too, except in the summertime, and Curt showed me how to lead! my dad used to guide OB with him a long time ago, (like before I was born)

2 years ago I first ice climbed at that spot, it was during a warming trend and I ended up screaming for my dad to get to a safe spot as I held a huge section of the climb with my lap. needless to say, it was a exciting experience.

looks like you had fun too, in a little safer way.

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