The Wasatch was taking a short break from it’s normal world-class snow conditions, so Scott and I headed north to Bozeman to get in the first couple days of ice climbing for the season. The first ice lead of each winter is always a bit of a strange affair. Things are always steeper than they look from the ground, you always over-grip and over-protect, and if you’re lucky, you manage to keep it together long to top it out and wonder how you ever led anything harder than what you just did. Then you calm down a bit, and the next pitch goes better, and the third or fourth route you’re feeling like you know what you’re doing once again.
Scott and I climbed some standard classics in the Main Hyalite Canyon area on Saturday, then then went into Flanders on Sunday to do Champagne Sherbert. Everything went extremely well at the start, which means we didn’t get the truck stuck and we actually hiked straight to the route without wandering aimlessly through the woods for hours. The route was in rather tough shape, and the lead didn’t go quite as smoothly, but I did get through the steep section and onto the lower-angled climbing above to the point where the first ascent party belayed. Of course, the first ascent went down in 1975 by climbers who were clearly more awesome than I am, and the standard for good ice climbers today is to do the whole 60m in one go.
Of course, I managed to use up nearly the entire rack in the first 30m, so I had three options…
1: Finish the last 30m of WI3 with one screw (probably would have been OK, but more than I was willing to do this early in the season).
2: Belay Scott from there (which would have resulted in getting killed by ice fall as he led the next pitch).
3: Build an anchor, let Scott TR the first pitch and then continue leading to the top, and follow (not very classy, but keeps me out of harms way).
I chose option three, and was happy that I did. I’m not sure if this invalidates my ascent or not, technically I did lead the first pitch and follow the second, but I think the tactics are a bit convoluted to really be considered a clean send. I guess I’ll have to come back and do it in one go next trip. I can’t wait. Of course, as has become the tradition, the drive home was an eight-hour white knuckle affair in snow-covered roads and a full-on blizzard. I just wouldn’t be a trip to Montana unless I though I was going to die from a head-on with a semi in total whiteout conditions. And the world didn’t end, so that’s cool.
