Early season is scary....

[Dane]

Hey guys and gals just a reminder....

 

Washington ice is fickle. All early season ice is fickle.

 

Last year about this time my belayer was almost buried on a road cut up the Icicle. It would have been fatal. A local climber was killed in Snoquera Falls. Guy Lacelle died in a small avalanche on Dec 11. The last week 2 different serious accidents on ice up north in the Ghost. With very experienced ice climbers involved. Yesterday a climber was knocked over by a small slough and lost some gear on Snoqualmie. It could have just as easily buried him...and been deadly. Today I saw two surprise releases at Exit 38 that would have obviously either killed or seriously injured anyone under them. Luckily no one was. But it was only luck.

 

I would hate to get chopped at Exit 38 ice climbing. After all the many miles of ice Guy Lacelle had climbed, it was some no name climb in Bozeman that got him.

 

I have generally waited until Jan. to water ice climb any where in NA. This year I already have a couple 1000 feet in and it is still Nov yet. So I'm not immune from wanting to get out early either.

 

Please be extra careful for the next few weeks until things are up, we get a stable snow pack and the temps are consistantly cold.

 

There will still be plenty of climbing to do in Jan, Feb and March if you are around to enjoy it.

[DPS]

Sage advice. Thanks for the reminder Dane.

[Plaidman]

Thanks Dude!!

[yikes]

Point taken, thank you.

 

Standing below the chandeliers at CYA felt a little sketchy with above freezing temps.

 

That said, true hardmen can swallow falling icicles and crap them out whole. Just ask Wayne.

[Plaidman]

Point taken, thank you.

 

Standing below the chandeliers at CYA felt a little sketchy with above freezing temps.

 

That said, true hardmen can swallow falling icicles and crap them out whole. Just ask Wayne.

 

Post up. We want to know how that it done.

[yikes]

I don't have the beta but maybe you can glean something from this snapshot.

[layton]

hahhahahah!!!

[wayne]

Ha yourself. I dislodged one 3 feet long and it got stuck in the back of my legloop. It looked like I had to pull it out of my arse!

[Jens]

The Wayne morph pic is awesome! It looks like he is stepping OB. He must have missed the debriefing in iso.

-----------------

I dented my helmet with some early season falling ice a few days ago.

[dan_e]

I think Dane has a good point. It's not that we shouldn't be getting out this early, however it's probably a good idea to use some caution. I am an ice freak and many of you are too and it's hard not to want to go out and climb any piece of frozen snot that has formed!

 

Honestly I climb much more ice outside of WA, especially this time of year. If stuff comes in here than it's a nice bonus, but I don't rely on it. The quality of ice here in WA varies more than any place that I know of. A good example is Skookum Flass which I climbed last season and the season before that around the same time and it's like they were two completely different routes (it was amazing last year BTW).

 

[Doug_Hutchinson]

My early season wakeup happened the first ski tour of this year in late Oct. I was breaking trail up to Camp Muir and just got above Pan Point skinning out of a small gully when I fractured a wind slab layer and was amazed at the small localized avy I triggered. Five minutes later, I was concentrating on skinning out of the next gully in a fog out (this gully was bigger, but only 20 feet vertical from top to bottom)when I set off a bigger wind slab fracture. Although, only 18" deep max, the debris buried my skis and me up to my boot tops and twisted me in a awkward enough position that I needed my partner to release my bindings. In a few thousand days of skiing, I have never been trapped before and it seemed like such a mellow place/day...

 

I feel that almost all ice in the PNW is "early season" and we never have the luxury of waiting for it to get fat or solid though. Some of the hardest climbs I have down are WI3 in "early season" in the PNW.

[icmtns]

Thanks Dane for the good reminder...Trying to get lots of hours in the gym and drytooling. Bozeman looks pretty awesome right now!

 

Last year, the ice ended up coming in pretty fat in mid Dec (and then disappeared later) Chair was thin in Dec, but got rolling in jan maybe?

[G-spotter]

There are plenty of routes than are only any good in early season, before the snow falls...

[icmtns]

There are plenty of routes than are only any good in early season, before the snow falls...

 

Which would you recommend?

[G-spotter]

I don't know WA specifics but I know around Lillooet I would want to climb stuff like Isodorth and Belmore; and things like the Urs Hole on Cascade in Banff, before there was any snow in the huge terrain traps above. Also before half the climb gets buried under avvy debris.

 

Of course this has been a very snowy November and buried a lot of the usual suspects already, but the idea still has merit. Plenty of things out there are only really doable early season and turn into death traps a bit later especially if the snowpack has PWLs and/or sunny aspects

[Plaidman]

G-spotter that last post was really helpful. Are you feeling O.K. I wasn't sure you had it in you to contribute in such a meaningful way.

[Dane]

Drew sez:

don't know WA specifics

 

Now there is a shock. But you finally got up Sir Donald so you can comment on the rock 1st hand now Urs hole was fun 3 weeks ago likely a death trap again now.

 

The topic is about early season ice. Frenchman Falls today is a great example. It is climbable now. But as a high volume falls it will come apart quickly (likely hrs) when the temps warms up or the sun hits it.

 

High volume falls are very dangerious in our rapidly changing conditions. Very low volume or weeps are likely to stay together longer as conditions change. (and not a whole lot better in Canada) But you also have to look at what kind of rock the ice is fixed to. The Snoqualmie pass area ice sublaminates faster than any other ice I have climbed on. The rock in the area is generally a hard non porous type that doesn't allow much attachment compared to good old limestone. Once the temps hit just above freezing (some times all that takes is a bit of sun on the rock) the ice is no longer attached. Things like the huge fall on Pineapple Express a couple of season's ago is the likely result.

 

Jen's and I did PE a couple days previous to that fall, on a cold, over cast day, during a snow storm. And the ice was solid that day..

[rat]

you sure know how to chatter.

 

as i recall, and i could be wrong, but "things like the huge fall on pineapple express" occur when you don't put in enough pro.

 

you may want to look up both the spelling and definition of your "sublaminates". i think you mean "delaminates".

 

climbing shitty ice is akin to climbing shitty rock....a skill to be learned. granted, you don't want to die doing either or getting shit on by whitey.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2010 by rat

[Plaidman]

Scary and Fun

 

Most of the years I could find pictures on Eastern Washington ice was all early season.

We got Starvation Creek Falls done early season last year. Dec 12th 2009. It was all good.

 

Mind you that the day after we finished Starvation Creek it was mostly gone, but it got really warm that day.

 

Starvation is a sick climb. Three of us got to top out. The top of the falls there is an awesome belay. Two ropes to rap off to climbers right. We rapped with headlamps. It was way awesome.

Starvation Creek TR

 

We almost got the chop on Ainsworth Left though. I'm not going back on that one.

 

Plaidman

 

[Plaidman]

Here is a reconnaissance of Starvation Creek last year.

Classic Plaidman nose hair video. Terrible quality.

Plaidman at Starvation Creek

[stevetimetravlr]

Plaid, your video quality is not so good brah. Here you are on first day of ice last winter. Mo bettah, yaaaa.

[Plaidman]

Thx Steve for posting that. That was an awesome day. After that I went down and belayed and followed Ben up the first pitch of Crest Jewel on Crown Point in the dark with headlamps. Flipping awesome season last year. just too short.

[Dane]

I do chatter. But I also try to make it useful chatter.

 

FWIW this from the guy that took the ride on Pineapple:

 

"To set the record straight the ropes were 60m. And I clipped into the normal tree belay at the end of P1. As leader I intentionally headed off the normal route as the far left side seemed to hold more ice and that was the point. My partner and I were tuning up for a trip to ice climb in Banff in the next couple of weeks. I worked over a bulge, set a knifeblade, continued to work up toward a solid tree belay - I didn't find the climbing difficult. Finding limited protection opportunities I clipped a small tree from which I worked up and to the right. Both ice tools were placed in one patch of ice - one above the other by about two feet. Both had passed the "Lowe" tug so I comfortably moved my left foot up - at this point the ice popped. The movement moved me right over a lip which pulled the plant, then pulled the knifeblade (due to angle of fall)."

 

And a past comment from Jens about the ice in the pass:

 

"the metamorphic andesite at Alpental provides very little adhesion for thin ice climbing in comparison to limestone, granite, gneiss, or sandstone. In fact of every type of rock I've climbed, the thin ice at the pass, just doesn't seem to stick to the rock as well as others. (I'd suspect that the ice delaminating caused both tools to blow*) I've seen big sheets delaminate up at the pass."

 

Thanks for the grammar and spelling lesson Rat.

 

I had intended the correct version of "sublimate" as in "vanish, vaporize, weaken". As I don't believe the ice on the pass ever laminates in the first place because of the rock quality there.

 

 

[stevetimetravlr]

Anyone ever ice climb and/or ski Shot Eight up near Alpental?

 

[Alex]

Climbing ice is flat out dangerous.

 

However, crossing the Wenatchee river in a 30$ raft in the dark without very careful scouting during daylight is even more dangerous. If you do something like cross rivers to get to avalanche threatened ice climbs this season, PLEASE scout the crossing during daylight hours, wear a PFD and a helmet during your transit across the water, and come back alive. Dying whilst ice climbing is dumb, but dying while "river rafting" and not wearing a PFD is even dumber.