First Time Ice Climbing

This week I got to try my hand(s) at a new winter sport, ice climbing. It was really cool to do something different and discover another way in which people explore the mountains in the colder months. As a plus I enjoyed it. Being a very in the moment sport it is neat to change between sports like ski touring and ice climbing where they require very opposite states of mind. Definitely no day dreaming when you are trying to hold on to two tools with all of your might because you are so pumped. I certainly tired myself out. Our house happens to be extremely close to an excellent ice climb called The Plum. At 9 am my dad and I hopped in our truck and drove for less than two minutes before parking. The second pitch of the route could be seen from our kitchen and living room windows, but the first pitch is south facing and hidden. Starting to walk up through the forest, my dad had flagged a route a few weeks before. We came to the run out zone of the river we would be climbing up and made our way up through the alder. After about 45 minutes we came to the base of the frozen falls. They looked really neat and I wondered how hard it would be to ascend them. We were planning to do the first pitch, reassess and then maybe hike to and try the second pitch. All of the pitches have about 20 minutes of walking between them.

Flaking out two ropes, my dad would use one to clip in and would trail one up for rappelling. I then realized that when I had switched my harness I hadn’t grabbed the ATC and therefore did not have a belay device. So I belayed my dad on a munter hitch. I couldn’t really tell if he was moving fast or slow, because I wasn’t sure how long it normally took, but he ascended 35 metres in about half an hour. I watched him screw protection into the ice and was occasionally hit with debris from him placing his tools or crampons, but I had my helmet on so I was fine. It was pretty cold out and I had put heat packs in my gloves and my fingers were still getting numb. My dad had to stop and shake out his hands multiple times to get the blood moving and warming his fingertips. After 30 metres he asked me how much rope was left before the halfway mark and he made his way over to an anchor around a tree. Setting this up I then lowered him down and put my crampons on. With the tools in my hand I started up the ice. The only other time I had tried this was a few winters ago and it was very half hearted as I only made it a couple metres off the ground. The motions were so different than other mountainous sports. Repeating to pound your hand and feet against the other ice was not like rock climbing as the same muscles were being used every single time. And it wasn’t similar to glacier travel were you use a different type of ice axe, and the butt end of it and are usually putting your crampons on snow. It was cool to do something that is so consuming, because it was new and scary I had to give it all of my attention.

At the beginning I took a lot of time to make my placements as best as I thought I could and tried to put them where my dad had put his. Being able to feel and hear when a placement was sound, was awesome. My hands did get quite cold and I stopped and shook them out to get the blood flowing. As I made my way up I couldn’t tell how much time was passing as I was solely focused on the ice in front of me. My calves and forearms slowly became more and more tired. At some points I thought I was going to fall, but I never did. Soon after my muscles started to feel like they would give out, I could see where the ice mellowed out and where the anchor was. Pulling myself over the steep part, I was so happy to be at the top.

I had just done something I had never done before. I had pushed myself a lot and had enjoyed it, plus, I didn’t even get the screaming barfies (when your hands are very cold and they rewarm and are in excruciating pain), which happens regularly while ice climbing and I had gotten it before in the mountains. As my dad lowered me down, I thought about how he wanted to do it again. Would I be able to climb all the way up that again? Reaching the bottom I was relieved and put on my big puffy. Then I set up a munter hitch and prepared to belay my dad back up. He told me that it had taken me 50 minutes. Starting up with his point and shoot camera, he showed me how its done, it probably took him five minutes to reach the time. I wasn’t discouraged though because I knew he has been doing this for so long and has a bizarre level of fitness. However I was worried about getting all the way back up because of how tired I had been the previous time. My dad and I had switched sets of ice tools so that I could try them both. The two that I had the second time around were not the same as each other, and I really liked one of them because I thought it fit better in my hand, but the other one was harder to hold than the first set. I was moving significantly faster for the first half of the climb, but I tired a bit and then slowed down.

Not re-adjusting my tools as much cut down the time a lot, I was coming to trust them more. But there was a couple times they slipped and one of those times left me hanging on the rope. That was also due to my tired forearms. This happened when I was quite close to the top and my dad started to take photos of me. Some times I told him to put both his hands back on the rope when I was struggling, but I was also glad he was taking pictures. Getting to the second time wasn’t as exciting, but I was prouder of myself because I had kept pushing.

I was sad we couldn’t see our house from where we turned around but knew it meant I would need to go back. Dreading the essay I would have to write for school when I got back home, I savoured the walk back to the truck and was very pleased and excited by the short day in the mountains I had had.