Elisif and I went to Bozeman Montana to climb ice, tele ski, and rock climb. My twin brother (Mark) goes to school at 
MSU so we had the hookups for a place to stay and a good climbing partner. We climbed at Hyalite Canyon, Pine Creek (45 min away), and Cooke City (3hours away). All the ice was amazing, it was hard to get back to Hyalite canyon, but once we did we had all the ice to ourselves!!! The weather was great, freezing at night and 40-45 in the afternoon.
above left (Daniel climbes M7 at Pine Creek Falls)
above right (Elisif leads WI3 at Pine Creek Falls)
Rigth (Elisif climbes over a tree in Pine Creek)
Day #1 Pine Creek was some amazing climbs, good mixed section and some great 40-60 meter WI3-4 climbs. We got to the base of a climb called green gully the fist day and thanks to my brother who heard a “load roaring sound” yelled at our climbing party (6 of us) to get out of the way as a very large avalanche flew past us 10’ feet in font of us to the base of the climb. We all would have been buried if we were actually climbing, but since we just got to the climb all of us were just to the left of the climb and out of harms way. One guy did get all of his gear buried and it took some time to find it all again. After
the avalanche stopped we went down and climbed at the falls where there is some ice climbing and some good mixed routes. We did go back a few days later when avalanche danger was lower and climbed both green gully and blue gully.Right (Daniel climbing some rock "SketchFest!!")
Day #2 we woke up to four inches of fresh snow on the ground so we decided to go to Bridger
Bowel and we tele skied in knee deep powder all day long!! First tracks on almost every run!! Nice and dry!! We got done skiing and went home and slept.Day #3 & 4 Cooke City was our destination for some excellent ice climbing. It was cold at night 8-10 degrees and 40ish in the afternoon, all good climbs and 30-35 min approach and great ice. We spent two days their and climbed as much as we could. Soaking in the hot springs
on the way back was key!! It’s called the boiling river just inside the west entrance of Yellowstone Park.Day# 5&6 we attempted to go back county skiing and go hoaxed both days. We decided to climb some rock instead, I don’t recommend leading any crack climb in the “pass” right outside of Bozeman, and the rock is super crumbly. The sport routes are fun though!!
Top (Elisif stands below the fist climb in Cooke City)
Bottom (Elisif climbes Genisis #1 WI4 in Hyalite)
Day# 7 Hyalite canyon what can I say epic ice all to ourselves…well almost. Lots of climbs and
every climb is huge right now!!! It is hard to get back their if you don’t have a snow machine or some crazy off road rig, but thankfully I am good friends with John Bowser and we rallied 14 miles through all kinds of snow in his Toyota Land Cruiser!! It was worth all of the winching and shoveling we had to do!!
Above (John get sucked into the ditch... winch and shoveling got us out everytime!)
Below (Daniel streches druing a move in Hyalite WI4)
Above (Mark climbs WI4 in Hyalite)
Below (Daniel cooks dinner in Cooke City)
Right (Elisif grinds on a park table with here tele gear in Hyalite)
Below (Elisif and I are happy to spending time togeather)
That’s all for now, great ice in the Bozeman area!! I want to give thanks to Mark and John for an excellent time in Bozeman!! What to do for our next break? Its alpine time...
