Pristine view of Lake Pend Oreille from Schweitzer Mountain Resort.
Earl Lunceford makes his way across frosted scree along the shoreline on the way to the base of the climb.
across miles of open water. There was far more ice than I remembered. I knew I needed an even closer look at the climbs and the extremely delicate environment they were situated in. These climbs formed in ava- lanche and rock fall chutes, 1,800- to 2,700-foot-tall chutes to be exact. Too little snow and warm temperatures meant major rockfall hazard. Too much snow and there would be major avalanche hazards. A couple of weeks later, I invited my buddy Dave Spoelstra out for a winter kayak trip, not unlike that trip I made over a decade prior. Only this one was just a day trip designed to get as close as possible to this ice climb for measurements, routes and high-reso- lution imagery to study back at home. I knew these climbs were fickle, and it would require near perfect con-
ditions to scale. At this point I knew the ice was in and it could be climbed. The big question was the weather. These climbs reside at what I call the “magic altitude,” where winter warmups in the low elevations help grow ice climbs instead of melting them out completely. The extreme cold spell that we had been in was ending, and I could see temps trend- ing upward into the mid- to upper- 30’s for the next couple of weeks. This trend would melt out and release a lot of the snow on the bedrock faces that could release and trigger avalanches. This was good. As long as the climbs refroze at night, the ice would stay healthy. And if the climbs stayed at or very near the freezing line during the day of our climb, we would be ok. I texted Earl the night after the scouting trip and sent him the pic- tures and videos. His excitement
was palpable. We decided the climb needed to happen within the cur- rent weather window before another snowstorm. One of the most unique aspects of these climbs is that they reside in an area accessible only by water. That meant we needed to access this climb via kayak, which added to the adven- ture as Lake Pend Oreille is known to produce ocean-sized waves. That following morning, Earl and I headed out. We checked and re- checked the weather on the way up and discussed the route and a gener- al plan for the day before pulling into the launch site just as daylight was making its debut over Bernard Peak across the lake from us. After a pleasant and calm pad- dle over to the cliffs, we found a safe and protected cove to land and stage
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