As the climber on lead moves up the route, he places ice screws into the ice for fall protection.
While Earl was climbing, I was keenly aware of just how warm it was getting. The fear of rock and ice fall grew more present with each moment that we climbed higher and higher up this chute. Every few minutes we would hear a smack above, then an audible buzzing of rocks flying. Upon hearing this, I would duck against the frozen wall of ice I was currently at- tached to while also trying to contin- ually pay attention to what Earl was doing 100 or 200 feet above me on lead. Luckily, most of the rocks that came down were golf-ball sized or smaller. We ended up with only one truly scary moment of rockfall that day where we decided that one more
ed the route, and there was a lot more rock exposed, complicating the climb- ing a bit. Despite that and having a bit of mixed climbing to contend with on the first pitch, it went well. Once I got to the top of the pitch, I built an anchor in a place that I thought would be well protected from rock and ice falling from above. Earl made it up to me at the bottom of the sec- ond pitch. He immediately started up the second pitch, which ended up be- ing the crux pitch of the day. It was a full 70 meters, literally end of rope to end of rope. This section of the climb was nearly vertical for a signifi - cant stretch on what could best be de- scribed as less than ideal ice.
the boats for the day. We got out of our kayaking gear and changed into climbing gear while constantly keep- ing the rising temperatures in mind. We wanted to be up this climb and back down safely before the temps rose enough to start releasing rock and snow from above us. >> Making the climb The climb begins at the water’s edge. About 650-700 feet up a rock- and neve-filled chute was the actu - al ice. It took us about 40 minutes to reach it. We decided I would lead the first pitch. To our dismay, more ice had melted in the week since I had scout-
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