Trying to predict the weather for climbing in Wyoming is like trying to become the President of the United States, if you were not born in the United States. -Johnny Sauerkraut
It all started on a Wednesday morning at 8am. My alarm goes off and some thoughtful Juicy J lyrics start to fill the warm air in the muscle basement. After carefully maneuvering through the usual chaos in my room, consisting of random clothing, slings, a Bosh drill, ice tools and a book about Gender Equality, I made it into the kitchen to heat up the warm, moist and pleasantly fragrant power juice. 5 minutes later I find myself back in bed, balancing my coffee in one hand and my laptop in the other checking the weather report. Winter weather hazard was written on the top of the page, indicating that pretty soon the weather in Laradise would be wet can shitty again. Leading to only one logical thing to do. It was time to sharpen up the ice tools and crampons again, and call up the Guru.
Loch Vail Part 1: The Beginning
Two days later I found myself back on the road with Ice Guru Rob, heading towards Rocky Mountain National Park, to check out the Loch Vail. A small valley near Bear Lake, which is filled with dagger like ice pillars and impressive ice curtains. After a short approach of just a couple of miles, Rob and I made quick work of multiple WI3 lines. While Rob cruised most of the ice, I still had to work on adjusting my swinging of the ice tools a bit before I had the honor to tie into the sharp end and lead my first WI3 line.
When I started ice climbing, many people told me that hanging off an ice tool feels like hanging off a jug. While this is technically true, many people are not aware of how strenuous ice climbing can be. Hanging on your arms, swinging the tool into the ice, looking off on an ice tool to move upward and placing ice screws, is often more physical then expected.
Five pitches later, a blizzard moving in and the ever lasting problem of huge masses of Colorado Climbers filling up the crag, we decided to pack things up and head out. When I saw an ice route called Crystal Meth, which was hanging over heads. While looking at this imposing ice curtain, I had a feeling that the curtain was calling my name, telling me I should climb it. However being rated WI4/5, Crystal Meth seemed to hard for me. All ice climbing books recommend that before stepping into the arena of WI4, one should top rope at least 50 pitches of WI4. To this point I hadn't even led one. I left Loch Vale, with the ambition to return the next year, hopefully prepared to attack Crystal
Meth.
Hidden Falls
After our day at Loch Vail, Rob and I were psyched and my desire to climb more ice was eager then ever. Three days later, I realized that I had a week day off from school and so we laid our eyes onto Hidden Falls. An impressive 90-100 foot frozen waterfall, in the Wild Basin part of RMNP. Rated at WI3-4, it seemed that it would be a good route to break into the upper WI3 and lower WI4 grade range. The only exciting part of the day, where the relative warm temperatures. At 5 degree Celsius, water tends to be more liquid than frozen, which led to some exciting and wet climbing conditions. Multiple times during my warm up on a mellow WI2, water was flowing out under my ice tools and the ice was behaving very plastic like, making the ice tools go in like butter. Rob decided to skip the warm up and jumped straight onto the main Hidden Falls route, making quick work up the 90 foot beast. Leading smooth, fast and efficiently. Then it was my time to try the route. After going through the inner debate if I would have the skill set to lead Hidden or not and some encouraging words from Rob. I pulled the rope, geared up and went for the lead. As being surrounded by an aura of pure focus, rhythmically I swung my ice tools into the ice, carefully placing protection along the way and before I knew it, I stood on top of Hidden Falls. Warm sunlight was shining into my face, drying off the wet snow from my face and a sense of joy set in. I fell back into the rope and lowered off.
Loch Vale Part 2: Crystal Meth
Both Rob and me being confident in our skills after the trip to Hidden Falls, it was back to return back to Loch Vale, to try some routes higher up around the Loch Lake. Due to a lot of snow fall, during the previous days, the approach became extremely difficult and postholing and breaking trail as well as avalanche danger, made it impossible to approach the route we had in mind. This meant, that returning into the Loch Vail George, seemed the most logical thing to do. After stopping on a short virgin ice pillar to warm up, once again we found ourselves below the intimidating ice curtain that is called Crystal Meth.
Not sure, what we should jump on we started to walk around looking at the ice quality of several routes in the area. Some of the routes offered very thin delicate ice, with no chance to place protection. Other's just didn't seem appealing. This is when the call of Crystal Meth started to sound in my ears again. Similar to Lord of the Rings, when the Ring started to call Frodo, Crystal Meth was calling me. After eyeing the line again, I told Rob I would go for the lead, started to rack up, pulled a pair of gloves over my hands and started to lead up the ice curtain. Quickly, I moved up to the rest ledge in the middle of the curtain, before the steep head wall. Placing good ice screws was difficult, since the ice curtain had many marks of previous climbers, making it appear similar to a piece of Swiss Cheese. Moving around these holes is sometimes more difficult then climbing fresh ice. After shaking out multiple times and trying to figure out a strategy to efficiently climbing up the head wall, I pounded my ice tools into the curtain and carefully started to move up. For each ice tool swing, two crampons kicked up into the ice a little higher. Gaining a little more elevation, soon I started to forget the surrounding nature around me and full concentration was focused onto my swing and steps. Occasionally snow from trees above me showered onto me, making cold water running down my spine. Brittle ice dislodged by my ice tools, fell onto my helmet, before shattering into small pieces and disappearing below me in an endless sea of white powdered snow. Slowly I am getting closer to the final bulge, while a pump is creeping up in my forearms. I start breathing deeply. My lungs fill with cold crisp air. Fighting the pump, I place another ice screw of dubious quality and hammer my tools into the ice above the bulge. The ice is covered by loose snow, which makes telling the quality of your pick placements rather difficult. The only thing I rely on is the sound my picks make, when they penetrate the ice. Carefully I weight the tools. My grip becomes tighter. Robs voice sounding from far distance: "Come on Phil, you got this". I step up and pull the bulge and find myself on top of Crystal Meth, something that seemed impossible just a week ago. Relief sets in, before I realize that without the mentor-ship and encouragement of the Guru, all these ice adventures wouldn't have been possible.
 |
| Ice Guru Rob |
Loch Vail Part 1: The Beginning
Two days later I found myself back on the road with Ice Guru Rob, heading towards Rocky Mountain National Park, to check out the Loch Vail. A small valley near Bear Lake, which is filled with dagger like ice pillars and impressive ice curtains. After a short approach of just a couple of miles, Rob and I made quick work of multiple WI3 lines. While Rob cruised most of the ice, I still had to work on adjusting my swinging of the ice tools a bit before I had the honor to tie into the sharp end and lead my first WI3 line.
When I started ice climbing, many people told me that hanging off an ice tool feels like hanging off a jug. While this is technically true, many people are not aware of how strenuous ice climbing can be. Hanging on your arms, swinging the tool into the ice, looking off on an ice tool to move upward and placing ice screws, is often more physical then expected.
Five pitches later, a blizzard moving in and the ever lasting problem of huge masses of Colorado Climbers filling up the crag, we decided to pack things up and head out. When I saw an ice route called Crystal Meth, which was hanging over heads. While looking at this imposing ice curtain, I had a feeling that the curtain was calling my name, telling me I should climb it. However being rated WI4/5, Crystal Meth seemed to hard for me. All ice climbing books recommend that before stepping into the arena of WI4, one should top rope at least 50 pitches of WI4. To this point I hadn't even led one. I left Loch Vale, with the ambition to return the next year, hopefully prepared to attack Crystal
Meth.
 |
| Rob following a WI3 at Loch Vale |
Hidden Falls
After our day at Loch Vail, Rob and I were psyched and my desire to climb more ice was eager then ever. Three days later, I realized that I had a week day off from school and so we laid our eyes onto Hidden Falls. An impressive 90-100 foot frozen waterfall, in the Wild Basin part of RMNP. Rated at WI3-4, it seemed that it would be a good route to break into the upper WI3 and lower WI4 grade range. The only exciting part of the day, where the relative warm temperatures. At 5 degree Celsius, water tends to be more liquid than frozen, which led to some exciting and wet climbing conditions. Multiple times during my warm up on a mellow WI2, water was flowing out under my ice tools and the ice was behaving very plastic like, making the ice tools go in like butter. Rob decided to skip the warm up and jumped straight onto the main Hidden Falls route, making quick work up the 90 foot beast. Leading smooth, fast and efficiently. Then it was my time to try the route. After going through the inner debate if I would have the skill set to lead Hidden or not and some encouraging words from Rob. I pulled the rope, geared up and went for the lead. As being surrounded by an aura of pure focus, rhythmically I swung my ice tools into the ice, carefully placing protection along the way and before I knew it, I stood on top of Hidden Falls. Warm sunlight was shining into my face, drying off the wet snow from my face and a sense of joy set in. I fell back into the rope and lowered off.
 |
| JKraut on Hidden Falls WI3/4 |
Loch Vale Part 2: Crystal Meth
Both Rob and me being confident in our skills after the trip to Hidden Falls, it was back to return back to Loch Vale, to try some routes higher up around the Loch Lake. Due to a lot of snow fall, during the previous days, the approach became extremely difficult and postholing and breaking trail as well as avalanche danger, made it impossible to approach the route we had in mind. This meant, that returning into the Loch Vail George, seemed the most logical thing to do. After stopping on a short virgin ice pillar to warm up, once again we found ourselves below the intimidating ice curtain that is called Crystal Meth.
 |
| Rob warming up on some virgin ice |
 |
| Crystal Meth |
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