Thin ice is like slab climbing...

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Brian in SLC

Social climber

Salt Lake City, UT

Feb 12, 2007 - 12:54pm PT

For the thin stuff in Maple Canyon, here in Utah, I've always preferred the Sabretooth crampon, over thoughts of mono points (flat frame with horizontal front points). Seems to provide a tad bit more security on roundy cobbles...

Some pics of Maple:

Mike A. on a variation of Bottomless Topless. Also has some funny commentary on this route in the Utah mixed climbing video, Comfortably Numb.

Same route, bit leaner conditions, Matt S. climbing on TR.

Mike again on the first ascent of Wildebeests and Angels a few years back. Must be soaring on the wings of a demon...

No such thing as a "rockprodigy" indeed...

My standard rack for Maple includes a bit of rock gear, stoppers, hexes (great for pounding in between rounded cobbles), selection of pins, shorty ice hooks, spectres, a gob of 10cm screws (or shorter custom rigs if you can find them) and most important for topping out in no-man's-land (besides a psyched partner), a fully charged Bosch.

Cheers,

-Brian in SLC

bachar

Trad climber

Mammoth Lakes, CA

Feb 12, 2007 - 02:24pm PT

Jello, Mal, Brian - great pics! You guys are nuts by the way ... in a good way.

WBraun

climber

Feb 12, 2007 - 02:35pm PT

This is an awesome thread with wild and scary looking stuff.

I agree with Bachars statement above.

Jello

Social climber

No Ut

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2007 - 09:09pm PT

Mal, that was a good summation of the Smear. Really happy to have shared that experience with Duncan and you. I especially like the way you made me seem so studly! Especially on a climb tha's more classic than difficult. By the way, the openning photo is not on that liitle cliff below Long's, it's actually on a good 180' pitch in the Jaque-Cartier River valley in Quebec.

Werner and John. Wish I could have gotten you guys interested in ice early on. The cold game would have leapt ahead like a panther after its' prey.

Ohh, and Rick, that photo reminds me of so much that is good about climbing in Chamonix, the Yosemite of alpinism. You were one who took yosemite skills to the higher (snowy) hills. I'm sorry we never had the opportunity to rope up.

Ohh-ohh(edit): and thanks for the pics ofthat Mike A guy doing something other than freeing everything in Zion, Brian.

Ricardo Carlos

Trad climber

Off center, CO.

Feb 13, 2007 - 12:03am PT

Jello
Just to her you talk about soft pointing on dinner plate ice in Bruce Ns living room sent me running back to josh!

Mungeclimber

Trad climber

one pass away from the big ditch

Feb 13, 2007 - 12:53am PT

Anyone remember the Vertical Times videos? edit, think the name is wrong. Pink and white wrapper in VHS box. Ring any bells?

Some sik thin ice on the "Tools Review" on one episode.

Plus all the latest from the Idaho competition. Fun look back vids.

alasdair

Trad climber

scotland

Feb 13, 2007 - 07:33am PT

Reading this thread i realise I've never done true "thin" ice climbing!

I remember climbing a thin guiness gully hooking old holes and keeping balaning hard to pull down not out!

Jello did you ever come over to Scotland and climb the thin face routes on the ben?

BlazeOn

Trad climber

Asheville, NC

Feb 13, 2007 - 09:22am PT

Thin ice is de rigeur in NC. Learn to love it! The top 3 are sequence photos with the final one being the WHIP when he blew the top off the sucka...schweet!

Jello

Social climber

No Ut

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 13, 2007 - 10:51am PT

Ricardo- when was that?

Blaze-on! photos from NC!

Alasdair- I made a pilgrimage to Scotland in '75. It was a pretty good winter and I got in about 50 routes, about half solo and half with a partner. Completely enjoyable trip. Out on the hill in a blizzard during the day, back in the pub listening to the Scottish masters spin their tales at night over pints of good beer and tumblers of scotch. Did many of the classics on the Ben, and added a few climbs there, as well, but the best route was the Citadel/Sticil Face combo on Shelter Stone, in the Cairngorms, with Gordon Smith.

Tarbuster

climber

right here, right now

Feb 13, 2007 - 11:46am PT

Man we would love to see some pictures from that Scottish trip...

Frozenwaterfalls

Ice climber

California

Feb 13, 2007 - 12:17pm PT

Love this thread! I am stuck at home (and have been all season) due to having to go in for surgery. Just off the percoset and so I am lucid for longer than 10 minute cycles so I checked into the Taco. I have to agree with Brian that I am sold on Sabreteeth for slab ice. And slab rock, not just pebbles. My first mixed lead was in Lee Vining and was totally unintentional (by me, my climbing partners really wanted the rope "up there" and I was the only one that led) so I headed up some thin ice which was okay since it was just gentle hooking and then had to do a slab (rock) traverse to get back onto the next ice section. The flat horizontals will actually "smear" on granite. Not saying I want to use this technique for 20 m runouts, but they did work. No way you could get enough surface area to do this with vertical monos and you do need the flex of the horizontals as well. But for the Sabreteeth, just find a good spot, place the points, drop the heels and repeat in cadence with your heart palpitations until you reach ice again.

bhilden

Trad climber

Mountain View, CA

Feb 13, 2007 - 02:03pm PT

Glenwood Falls, CO, late 80's. You could still park below the falls because I-70 hadn't been completed. It was totally illegal parking and you risked a big ticket, but we threw a bunch of snow on the "No Parking Sign" and were prepared to plead ignorance.

This climb is south facing so it forms up and falls off pretty regularily, but it looked OK so we headed up. We free-soloed the first two pitches (somehow I got to go up last which meant I got showered with the most ice from above but it was probably only WI3 or so). Rick led the third pitch which is where we first started seeing (and ignoring) bail anchors. Bill led the fourth pitch. More bail anchors and more ignorance. When I got up to the belay, Rick and Bill were standing on a 70 degree slab that had about 1 inch thick ice over top of it. No belay to speak of, the ice was just too thin.

My lead, up I go. No use swinging the tools, they would just punch through the thin ice and bounce off. I was delicately trying to place them like sky hook and use them for balance. After about 40-50 feet I reached a vertical column of ice which was about 1 foot in diameter and 20 feet high. I probably should have slung the base of the pillar, but instead I sunk a Chouinard screw in it at the base.

Because the pillar was so small in diameter, I had to climb it pigeon-toed with my my feet looking for pruchase on the sides pointing toward each other. I was gently swinging my axes trying not to knock the pillar down. At one point Rick and Bill yelled up, "Hey, Bruce, could you swing your tool again, that last stick didn't sound very good." Obviously, with no belay anchors and being 400 feet off the ground they were very much concerend with my climbing skills.

At one point I tried to place another screw in the pillar but it just wouldn't start. I finally looked at the threads and (it was Bill's screw) they were all bent inward. I just chucked the totally useless screw out into the void on a path I was certain I would soon follow.

At the top of the pillar I was confronted by what I can only describe as the equivelent of having a piece of 2" styrofoam
sheet 25 feet high propped against a wall at 80 degrees. I have no clue how this formed but clearly it was going to be difficult to climb. I figured that kicking steps one on top of the other would probably weaken the structure and all the steps would blow out and off we would all fly. So, I climbed up, kicking random steps from side to side making it look like swiss cheese when I had finally topped out.

When I got to the first tree on top, I put three slings around it, I was so scared. The capper was that when we got together a few weeks later to look at photos of the climb, there were none of me leading the last pitch. Rick and Bill explained that they were too scared to get out their cameras.

The whole thing fell off the next day.

Bruce

maldaly

Trad climber

Boulder, CO

Feb 13, 2007 - 02:08pm PT

Lucky Bruce, that one's killed people. Jello, Sibley swears he has a video of the Fang falling down when you guys were up there to do some filming. Is that just a rumor or should I go sit on Sibley until he coughs it up?
Mal

Maysho

climber

Truckee, CA

Feb 13, 2007 - 09:24pm PT

Second time on ice was Sentinel Falls with Bridwell, 1980, he backed off the upper half of the first pitch, "I don't think this will support my weight, you check it out". He had a way of inspiring me to be a quick study, so up I go, first time leading, thin rivulets of ice with running water in between, steppin gingerly, one-swing-only placements and the hot tool of the moment was the tubular hummingbird (a Jello innovation I believe), stuck ok but not so great for hooking. I remember it felt more like slimy slippery A4 without aiders than slab rock climbing.
It got fat after that and we had a good time, unroped on the last two pitches. We made a strange decision to descend down a gully to the 4 mile trail, a thrash. A cute blond who I had met once before picked us up hitchhiking, 2 years later I was a 20 year old father.
If I had gone a bit slower or faster on that first ice lead what would life have been like?

Peter

Jello

Social climber

No Ut

Topic Author's Reply - Feb 13, 2007 - 09:25pm PT

I wasn't along on that film shoot, Mal, but I heard the story from Greg. I think Wiggens and Weis were there, along with Paul and maybe some others. I think they decided to call off the shoot, and then immediately the whole hundred-foot pillar crashed down right in front of them! Good call...

Great story about meeting your mate on Sentinel Falls, Peter! Err- AFTER Sentinel Falls, I mean...imagine Bridwell as a mate in that sense...oh, I have to stop, the image is unbearable!