Jim Olson and I set out to climb Cloudveil Dome yesterday with great anticipation for more fall ice. We found some. Jim is a professional mountain guide on the JHMG roster. As we all know, guiding can be a part-time endeavor at best. Jim auguments his living as a tile-setter. This is how we met. I hired Jim two years ago to do some tile on one of my jobs and he has been my de-facto tile sub ever since.

Jim, aka Jamie (hai-me), is a Victor, Idaho/Jackson, Wyoming fixture. He has been climbing here and route setting for the better of the past 30 years. Humility is one of his defining characteristics. All day long we joked about how it is to climb with old dudes. Jim would talk about the days when he was "honed".

We had set out to climb the ephemeral ice route "Nimbus". Excuses, excuses, excuses. Jim was feeling a bit hypoxic and I was a little fatigued from my up-hill ski race training. So we decided to take it a little easier and climb some moderate ice on the Zorro.

Enough with the babble, here is a photo blast:


A brief list of why it is cool to climb with old trad guys:
--They think quick-draws are useless in the mountains
--They equalize anchors with a double figure eight knot
--They prefer to carry anorexic gear racks
--They know loads of great local history
--They carry good climbing food like dried bananas, salame sandwiches, and coca-cola

We ushered in the first real winter storm of the year. It was cold all day it started snow just as we reached the summit.

What a great day! Thanks Jim.