Ice Climbing

“Whose done it? Who wants to try it?

How damaging is the ice chips to the environment and animals?”

“Ice chips damaging the environment, eh? A Friday troll, no doubt.”

“When they fall... can they chip rocks? Cause slides?

Legitimate question? I have never done it, saw it on the Travel Channel.

Jeesh.”

“Hi Tarpy”

“Weel, put that way... here goes. So9me years ago I was waterfall climbing with some students. It was extremely cold and the ice was brittle. I knocked a basketball sized piece out and it bounced down into the stomach of the student that was belaying me and knocked him out. He slid to the bottom of the fall and the instructor had to traverse to the rope to belay me. It didn't take long but it seemed an eternity. I daren't try to plant the axe in case the other one came out too. I just stayed ther feeling the blood flow out of my right hand and doing the sewing machine dance with my heels.

Not this past winter, but the one before was unusually warm in the Northeast. A buddy and I went down to the Alpine Club of Canada's club house in Keene, NY for a week-end of winter mountaineering. When we got there everyone was extremely subdued.

Two young (mid 30's) couples had come down from Toronto to ice climb. Ice ice came unglued from the rock face and one of the fellows died while belayed by his fiancée. His car keys were on the table in the common room. We all had very negative vibes and my buddy and I decided to $hitcan the week-end and went to Placid for a boozy dinner and the drive home.

In 1996 We were at it again with a bunch of students on a waterfall on Mont St-Hilaire. That week-end a group from John Abbott College (Montreal island) were climbing in the Dacks. For some unknown reason one young fellow unclipped at the top of the fall. The ice broke and he fell through. Stuck between the ice and the rock face with freezing water pouring over him, he died of hypothermia before they could get him out. He was from our area, too.

Other than human destruction, ice climbing is benign. Some ignorant climbers will damage trees and rock faces while installing protection such as top ropes, but if you're careful, you can avoid damaging the environmnent.

It's a lot of fun, but join a club and get decent instruction first. Even with good instruction, poo can happen, though.”

“I don't know if it is damaging but if you tell them ice is more conservative they will find a theory to prove it is damaging!”

“Ok, you actually have a bio....

I've been climbing ice for years. I use to use vertical ice to teach clients and partners to trust their tools...after you do a few top roped climbs, a 60 degree glacier doesn't seem too bad.

The biggest danger from the ice chips are to your belayer, if he's dumb enough to belay directly under you.

The new big wave in ice climbing the last few years is M class (M4/M8...thats when you do a mixed climb involving, say, 5.10 (dry tooling) and then transferring to vertical ice. Dry tooling with your ax's and crampons on 5th class rock can be a challenge, it can also damage the rock if your not careful, removing flakes and such.

The neat thing about ice is it changes all the time, what is easy one day can be really sketchy the next. You won't hear ice climbers brag about all the falls they took rehearsing the climb...falling with those sharp, pointy ax's and crampons with over 22 points is not an option, plus the odds of your protection actually not pulling out are not exactly in your favor.

Get lessions....Top roping can be fairly safe but if you take the next step and go out on the sharp end, you better know what your doing.”

“Gremlins story reminded me of a time when my partner, Amy, was climbing with another guy at a local spot, she led the climb, which included a 50' curtain near the top, when she was bringing up her second she heard a huge crash, almost like an explosion, but the rope never went tight...a minute later the guy comes up to her looking rather pale, when she asked what happened he told her that the curtain broke off just as he kicked his crampon in at the top...everything below him disappeared.

On a sadder note, last year a couple buds were climbing in Canada when the ice cave that one of my friends was using to belay out, of collapsed and killed him. This was in an area that is very popular and the cave was used by everyone to belay out of. The investigation showed that the night before it had dropped to well below zero, then warmed up the next day to around 25, it made the ice brittle and unstable.

stuff happens, if you do this long enough, friends will die.”

“am i the only one who has noticed that "skcusttam" backwards = "mattsucks"?”

“How's it going -- sorry I didn't get a chance to hook up with you last spring -- we had a great 3 months of climbing. I'm currently living in Korea... what you up to?”

“Wow, been wondering what you were up to. Whats up with you, did you get to finish the film, climb your brains out??? I see that there are lots of climbers heading to Korea, how did you end up there....I don't suppose you have bumped into a group from Northern CA with a guy named Carter?

For me, I'm still guiding the hoods, doing a little backcountry climbing in the Trinity Alps, spending the last 7 months in the snow, gads I want to see dirt again.

Send me n email when you get a chance.”

“2scoops...you're good.

So is skcusttam just another troll?”

“Mmmmm...in case ya didn't know...it's getting a little late in the season to ice climb.”