The Ice Climbing field trip

(Because Rock Climbing just isn't nutty or dangerous enough)

The driver for my carpool cancelled. I checked on the web for camping at Rainier and the two closest campgrounds were reservation only and the other nearby campgrounds have very limited spots. I just decided to drive up myself and sleep in my car in the parking lot. There is a sign at Paradise "Absolutely no overnight camping in the parking lot". Well I wasn't camping, I was just sleeping in my car. I had tested the back of my car when I first bought it and thought it was too small for me to fully stretch out and figured I'd just have to sleep curled up a little. But found I can actually fit at full stretch diagnally from corner to corner, though I am touching at both ends.

A few people in the group managed to get campsites, but most slept in their vehicles or did commando camping off the road just outside the park entrance.

They told us to be ready to go at 7:00am, which I was, but the instructors weren't even around at 7. By the time we were all checked in and ready to hit the trail it was 8:15. (Though they did wait around a little while extra because there were a few students who were no shows as well as a couple of instructors) A few of us grumbled about what a pain it is to be ready on time at these field trips with all the standing around waiting and late starts.

There was some discussion in the morning of the movie Vertical Limit. It seems to be a common occurrence for climbers to crack up laughing during the movie and have people in the theater give them dirty looks or shush. The movie is viewed by most climbers as a comedy.

Visibility was foggy and poor all day Saturday, which means it was cold. We hiked up through the Paradise meadows to the moraine trail. The meadows are in full bloom this time of year. Lupin, paintbrush, daisies, etc. (candytuff?) August is the time of year to visit Paradise for wildflowers.

When we got down into the glacier area we were still walking mostly on loose dirt and rocks but it was all on a base of solid ice so there would be slippery sections and if you tried to sidehill on the dirt it would just slide down to reveal bare ice. In the basic climbing course you are taught that "you always rope up on a glacier". We just walked out unroped to the practice area. There is no snow at all on the glacier, thus there are no hidden crevasses. All the crevasses were open and visible and you just negotiated your way around or through them.

We started out in the morning without crampons to practice walking on the ice in just our boots. You need to look very carefully for little bumps and especially use dirt and small pebbles or whatever you can to get a grip in your foothold. Basically it is just like friction technique on rock but more slippery. We practiced the bannister position of our ice axe for traveling downhill. You swing your axe down below you to plant it in the ice and then you use the handle of the axe like a stairway bannister as you do a crouching walk down.

After that practice for a while we put on our crampons and practiced various crampon techniques. Flat footing, duck walk, sideways, and the various axe techniques as the hill gets steeper. We did a little front pointing also on a short vertical slope. I wore leather boots the first day. They were fine for most things but front pointing in leather boots with hinged crampons isn't very secure. (Though I did find it easier to walk straight downhill in leather boots with crampons than in plastic boots as the slope got steeper - I wore plastic boots the second day)

The whole group was gathered together after that for a demo by the field trip leader on setting up anchors for belayed climbing. (belayed climbing is being on rope and having someone "belaying" the rope to catch you if you fall) The basic set up was two ice screws as anchors backed up with an ice axe or Ice tool. Rope management is tricky on belay on a steep slope and you also have to set up your belay station off to the side of the route, because on ice the climber will be knocking chunks of ice down and you don't want to be directly under it.

We tied into the ropes in teams of two and practiced swinging leads a few times. At the end, my rope partner did a very tricky move stepping across a crevasse chasm and climbing a short vertical section of ice. I was a little nervous about trying to follow that but they said he wasn't supposed to go up that far and just had him come down. It was both relieving and disappointing as it would likely have been a great little adrenaline moment.

Finally, the new field trip leader Scott (the other leader had to leave early for a previous arrangement) demonstrated the V thread. To make a V thread you make a hole in the ice with an ice screw and then you use an ice screw to make another hole that intersects the first hole. (To make a V shape hole in the ice.) You push a piece of webbing into one side of the V and you use a little wire tool to pull the webbing through the other side of the V. Then you have a webbing sling securely anchored by being threaded through solid ice. That is how you rappel down off of an ice climbing route. They tested how solid the V thread was by tying a rope to the webbing and having a bunch of people pull on it. They could not get the ice anchor to break, even though the ice quality is fairly poor (soft not solid). The instructor then used his ice axe to scrape off a bunch off ice in front of the V to make it weaker and they pulled again. They still could not break the anchor. Then he scraped off more ice so that it was so thin he could clearly see the webbing behind the ice. Still a group of people pulling on it could not break the anchor. Good demo to show how secure it is to rappel off a V thread.

That was a wrap for the day. We were warned "be careful after you take off your crampons, that you don't still have your crampons on" Visibility opened up a little at this point in the day which was very helpful for finding our way back off the glacier. It was kind of amazing the leaders were able to find the practice area in the low visibility of the morning.

There was the choice of finding a picnic area and cooking up some camping grub or eating at the Paradise lodge. (After a long tiring cold day it wasn't a hard choice.) The restaurant didn't open until 5:30 so a few of us hung out in the bar a while. A couple instructors talked about the water ice course and what a blast it was to climb waterfalls, chandelier ice, and verglas. (Verglas is a thin layer of ice on top of rock) Mostly you do that kind of climbing on top rope because if you are lead climbing on difficult ice and make a mistake it will probably be your last.

A group of 5 of us got to the restaurant a little late (around 7) and they didn't have any tables to seat 5. They told us about 5 to 15 minutes for a table. After waiting around 15 minutes we still didn't have a table but noticed there were a lot of empty 4 person tables in the room. One guy in the group had the idea to change our reservation to 4 and have the 5th person come in a minute later and ask to be seated at the same table. Then it becomes the waiter's problem instead of having to wait for the strict rule oriented doorman. A little audacious but it worked very well. The waiter seemed to have no problem with it and we got a table immediately. The reviews we had gotten by some of the other people who were done when we went in was that it was overpriced mediocre food. Other people the next day had similar opinions, but they had all ordered the lower priced dinners or appetizers. I ordered a seared salmon and it was fairly good and the guy next to me at the table ordered steak and said it was good as well. The other three guys ordered Buffalo meatloaf and at least they didn't complain. Deserts were considered very good but I didn't have one.

Sunday we got an earlier start. I didn't check for sure but we were probably on the trail around 7:30. It was cloudy at the parking lot but started to open up into a beautiful sunny day as we hiked along. The summit was clear. While the hike in was getting a little warm, how nice it was to be playing around on the ice and not be freezing cold. All we had to worry about was sunburn.

When we first got onto the glacier there was a rumble and a huge serac broke off and crashed down into a chasm. This was just about a couple hundred feet directly above where I happened to be at the moment. Therein lies the problem of a beautiful sunny day. It's nicer to be out when it's warm but extremely dangerous.

We got to our climbing area and the leaders went up to look for good walls to set up top ropes. A few of us started "bouldering" while waiting. When the leader came back he was too worried about conditions to have us go up further into the ice field and set up top ropes on some good vertical walls he'd found up above.

After a demo of various techniques, we all went out to boulder around in the area. Practicing tool placement, foot position while front pointing, traversing, up climbing and down climbing. There were several good but short slopes. I had a long ice axe and a very short ice tool so it was a little awkward having one in each hand and trying to climb with them. Most people had two ice tools so they were similar length. The instructors went around and found some vertical walls where they could set up top ropes. So in between bouldering we would go to a rope station and practice trickier stuff on rope (gotta do that monkey hang).

When I went to belay someone at a station, I set my ice axe and ice tool behind me and then went up to belay a climber. I looked back and my ice tool was gone. There were a number of people milling about in the area but none of them seemed to have the tool. There was a puddle in front of where I had set the axe and tool. Did it drop in? You'd think I would have heard a kerplunk if the tool went in the puddle (I was right in front of it) but I didn't hear anything. We checked it out and the puddle was apparently bottomless. (We are talking about that we are standing on solid ice on a glacier) So that was a bummer. I had to borrow tools to climb after that.

I did three of the four top rope stations that they had set up. Also most of us got on a wall and practiced making a V thread. After setting up our sling through the V, we would then clip to it and hang on it. One guy was going all out and was hanging on his ice tool, set up a couple anchors with ice screws and hung on those and then set up his V thread to hang on. (That is what you might actually do on a climb)

Even though we got the scare of the huge ice block coming down when we first got to the glacier, nothing major came down the rest of the day even though there were several things we all expected to come down. As people started winding down they had us get ready to go. Gave us a little more commentary and instruction on technique and style and we were out of there.

Quite a fun and interesting field trip. I definitely need to get in some more practice though if I'm going to do much ice climbing.

Check out my pictures from the field trip.