cody ice festival conditions

[genepires]

Hey all, just got back from the cody ice festival. Rumor had it that there was a couple of other washingtonians there but where elusive. Anyhow, conditions there where not as good as usual but still much better than anything near here. Any washington ice climber, with our desperate scratching skills on meager ice, will find even bad conditions plenty fat. (fat is relative term) There are lots of 6 pitch lines on both sides of the valley. Pick your pleasure, sunny plastic stuff or cold solid reliable stuff. Never a avi hazard as low snowfall is a standard thing there. Be ready to rap off single bolts though.

We climbed every day there with reasonable approaches across classic cowboy terrain. Found a old horse skull and some body parts from a grizzly feast. The fellow who puts the event on (don foote) is a great resource for routes, especially since the locals are a bit tight lipped about their routes. Making your first trip to cody during the festival is a pretty good thing. When I go back, it might not be during the festival though. Any other weekend and the whole valley will probably be all yours. During the festival, there was only about 30 people there. Only one day did we share our route with someone else and they were very cool people. Anyway, if you get the chance to go to cody, I highly recomend it. (next year though, I think the season will be over soon unless it gets cold)

[Lambone]

Right on Gene, glad you had fun! The younger crowd in Cody are pretty friendly, even gave us a place to stay and beers. The old schoolers are much quieter. Met Todd Cousins at the base of horsetail falls, he's the old school hard man there. he was nice, built a fire at the base of the route for all of us.

cheers...wanna hook up for another trip next year?

[Lambone]

Hey gene, what routes did you do????